postmodernity.

Throughout the 20^th century the modern project has become untrustworthy. By the modern project I understand the belief in rationality, objectivity and universality as the fundament of both ethics and science. The doubt in the modern project is partly due to the horrors which occurred in the heart of the enlightened Europe throughout the history of the 20^th century: Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Soviet Communism, environmental crisis. The doubt in the modern project has also been strengthened by the critics of objectivity and metaphysics raised by Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger amongst others. Today we find it impossible to believe in the modern project. We cannot believe in a linear historicity, in the objective truth, in the thought that the rationalization of society and technological advances will necessarily lead to the good society. In the slipstream of the dismissal of the modern project, postmodern philosophy has focused on the particular and the singular instead of the general or the universal. In postmodernity universality and objectivity have been replaced by pluralism and differing perspectives.

                      Nevertheless, the postmodern belief is not unproblematic. It has enormous consequences for the status of ethics and science. Without an ethic provided by either nature or God or reason, how can we then create a good society? If truth is not something we can discover, a riddle we can solve in the great book of nature, how are we to understand the role of science? On the basis of those problems some come to believe that pluralistic thinking implies a total nihilation of values. Indeed some of the thinkers who had in the first place accepted the postmodern critics of the modern endeavours to make objective descriptions and grasp universal norms, abandon the postmodern belief in particularity and pluralism because they conclude that ethics is no longer a possibility within the postmodern way of thinking. Here, I especially think of Richard Rorty and Slavoj Žižek, who both, but in different ways, end up by completing a cycle; suggesting that we are to universalise a particular ontology or ethic.

To reflect upon this problem of the postmodern: How is it possible at the same time to take the critique of universality and objectivity serious, and still believe in the value of ethics and science? To formulate a thinking of plurality that does not entail a – in Gianni Vattimos words – negative nihilism, where nothing has any value, where ethics and truth has been sucked out of the world. How is it possible to conceive ethics and science without unreserved confidence in rationality, objectivity and universality? How is it possible to hold a critical perspective without a universal and objective fundament?

a project proposal: a history of ideology.

My general field of interest is the historical development of notion and ideal of objectivity, and inseparable from this, the exclusion of certain types of knowledge as subjective, in the meaning with the connotations: false, biased, illusory or simply myth. Within this broad field, I am specifically interested in the role of objectivity in history of socialist theory.

As I understand it, orthodox Marxist cosmology, operates with a dichotomist distinction between the recognition of objective interests and false consciousness (being the result of the workings of bourgeois ideology). In this light, a strategy of emancipation must simply enlighten the unenlightened: tear off the veil of ideology. When this have been done, the proletariat, now realizing there objective interests (the access to objective knowledge is through the dialectic method of scientific socialism), will unquestionable revolt against their suppressers (this also being a historical necessity).This has nevertheless not happened.

Since the days of the dawn of industrialism where Marx did his writings, socialist theory has developed in different directions, and it is the history of the concepts of objectivity and ideology in these traditions and their role in the different strategies of emancipation, I wish to undertake a genealogy of.

Concerning the point of departure of this genealogy I consider to stroke down on Theodor Adorno & Max Horkheimer and their thesis of the Dialectics of Enlightenment. Here, the ideal of enlightenment is somehow defiled: Enlightenment, in itself containing its opposition (myth) and consequently relapsing into barbarity. I also consider drawing on the works of Antonio Gramsci: who expand the notion of ideology and introduces the concept of struggle for hegemony.

Concerning the late history of objectivity and ideology, I propose working with socialist theories, which in accordance with the linguistic turn; have completely abandoned the idea of an objective world outside of the discourses / outside the ideology (Laclau & Mouffe, Žižek, Vattimo, Hard & Negri). This development introduces a series of intellectual problems I find especially interesting: How are we to understand the concepts of enlightenment and emancipation, if the ideology is at the same time the structures of suppression and that which enables humans to understand and navigate in life? What is the role and status of ideology critique and how are we to evaluate changes in the light of the lack of objectivity?
Different Authors have suggested different answers and it is a discussion of these, as well as their different understandings of the problem in question, I wish to investigate.

skitse til en kriminalroman af en gammel skuffe.

Kronologien, begivenhedernes gang:

Vores hovedperson, lad os kalde ham Charlie ind til videre, er violinist. Imidlertid er han temmelig middelmådig på sit instrument og han går derfor, på ugentlig basis, til timer hos den midaldrende og gigtplagede Kornelius. Historien starter den tirsdag eftermiddag hvor Charlie burde være til violintime, men ikke er det. Han har nemlig et forhold til en ung dame, hvilket Kornelius, der selv engang har været ung, har fuld forståelse for. Han har tilmed så stor forståelse for ungdommen at han har indvilget i en gang imellem at dække over Charlie når hans strenge og ambitiøse forældre forventer at han øver under kyndig vejledning.  Hvad Kornelius dog ikke er klar over er at Charlies bekendtskab er hans ældste datter Viola. Charlie er altså formelt set til violinundervisning, men realt set står han forgæves og ringer på Violas dørklokke. Hun er tilsyneladende ikke hjemme, på trods af at de havde aftalt han skulle komme forbi.

Slukøret vader Charlie ned på kaffebaren skråt over for Violas opgang, for at låne toilettet og måske endda lige få en lille forfriskning. Hvad Charlie ikke bider mærke i er at ham glemmer sin, ellers kostbare, violin på trappeopsatsen foran Violas dør. Mens Charlie sidder på caféen og nyder en espresso bliver Kornelius myrdet i sin herskabslejlighed med en violinstreg. Charlie rejser sig og skal til at begive sig hjem af, i det det går op for ham at han har glemt sit instrument. Heldigvis finder han den hvor han havde efterladt den, så han bevæger sig derfor upåagtet mod sit hjem. Alt imens Charlie cykler hjemad låser Cornelius´ kone, Karen Elizabeth, sig ind i sin lejlighed. Her finder hun sin mand stranguleret med førnævnte violinstreng. Han er helt mørkeviolet i hoved. Karen Elizabeth, der er en fåmælt, men handlekraftig dame, begiver sig staks mod morderens bopæl hvor hun myrder Cornelius’ morder i varmt blod (Hun ved noget vi ikke ved). Nu er både Cornelius og Viola døde. Efter at have myrdet sin ældste datter tager Karen Elizabeth et koldt bad i hendes hjem, hvorefter hun henter sin yngste (stadig hjemmeboende) datter fra en sportsgren, muligvis svømning. De ankommer sammen til bopælen. Karen forbereder sig på at foregive en forfærdelse over Cornelius død, men (et fedt plot twist kunne også være hvis liget var væk) hendes yngste datter, Margarita, griber chancen og kvæler sin mor. Hun bruger en violinstreng, med henblik på at kunne tørre skylden af på faderens morder (imidlertid aner hun intet om at Cornelius blev dræbt af den nu afdøde Viola). Derefter ringer hun til politiet og anmelder ”dobbeltmordet” af hendes forældre. Naturligvis mistænkes Charlie i udgangspunktet. Han fortæller sandheden: han ville have været hos Viola. Lige inden Politikommissæren skal til at tage ud for at afhøre Viola, ringer Charlies far. Han har fundet Viola død i hendes lejlighed (han havde nemlig også en affære med hende). 

freedom.

If politics are understood most narrowly as the parliamentaristic practices of making up and disagreeing about the laws of nation states and deals between same, freedom from politics is pretty much the case for many if not most, and defiantly an opportunity for all in western society. As a matter of fact you do not even have to vote, even though most people do so occasionally. On the other hand they do talk a lot about politics and politicians on TV. They even broadcast live from the pseudo-debates in the chamber of the Danish parliament on national television, but if it bothers you or you are just not into politics, you can always change the channel and will most likely find a nice and entertaining program about celebrating celebrities or real-life cops on patrol between commercial breaks. This is without doubt some sort of freedom, but even though a concept of freedom which is defined negatively is necessary it is simply not enough. To phrase it polemically: What good is it to be free to leave if you have nowhere else to go?

 
When all this is said, I don’t believe that the legitimate possibility of not giving a fuck about the doings of our representatives is what comes first into the mind of postmodern man when asked about his desire for freedom. To unblatantly put my prejudices on display I am afraid that many of my peers link the idea of a higher degree of freedom directly and intimately with the task of obtaining and then spending more money: accumulating items, frequenting cafes and the like. The thing I find most stunning about this, is how rarely the people I meet seem to reflect upon how expensively they buy their money, so to say. For instance, the cash needed to acquire a pair of brand jeans from a firsthand-shop would cost me 16 hours of washing dishes or calling strangers about newspaper subscriptions. Of course not all jobs are as lousy as the ones I have had, but I think a lot of the smartphone and flat screen consumption of western society would vanish if everybody made these kinds of calculations before reaching for their credit card. Furthermore I do not believe it is only when it comes to the process of mentally linking the numbers on their bank statements with the labour for with they were traded that leaves many estranged. The other part of the bargain – the objects you receive when performing the ritual of giving away the pieces of colored paper and metal disks we usually refer to as money – are equally strange to us. An IPod, for example. How did this object come into existence? How and why did it end up on this shelf with hundreds of identical twins right next to it? Most of us know when asked, but few seem to be conscious when navigating in everyday life. Never the less we a living in the midst of a remarkably short period of human history in which technology enables us, and the decreasing amount of natural resources allows us, to produce, transport and consume at this astonishing level. This also takes us to the heart of the present day question of freedom. We are, in western society, so wealthy that my grandmother (living in preindustrial rural Iceland) would simply not be able to understand our way of life. My generations fight for emancipation is not the struggle to overcome our need and poverty, but the struggle for freedom of people we might never meet. Amongst others the people who builds our items.

the cover of the dialectics of enlightenment.

One book cover which I would find particularly amusing to illustrate would be The Dialectics of Enlightenment by Adorno and Horkheimer. Firstly, simply because the cover, at least of the volume belonging to me, is remarkable dull. The book is a light shade of grey on which brownish capitalized letters with sheriffs is stating the title, the names of the authors and the publisher. Underneath the title there is a black and white photography of two grumpy looking men both wearing spectacles. To me the cover does not in any way attempt to grasp the leitmotiv of the book or accompany the aphoristic language which somehow seems to provoke visualizations by itself[1]. This, of course, could be a reason to leave the cover as it is, thereby preventing the distortion of the readers own process of visualization.

If I was to illustrate it anyways I would still keep the cover in black and white, the contrast balance being 80/20, which due to the workings of human visual perception will make the white stand out, drawing the attention of the eye towards it. I would use the white for the streaks of light coming from a giant lantern in the center of the illustration. The lantern would be a build in and center part of an enormous complex of factory-like buildings with visible cogwheels and smoke coming out from the tall chimneys entangling with one another as well and the light beams from the lantern. Working different tasks around this miniature of modern civilization I picture large numbers of small human creatures all struggling to keep the fire of the lantern burning, even sacrificing themselves as fuel, thus illustrating the enlightenment eating its own children. In the far corners of the top of the cover the light of enlightenment would reach and dissolve images of ghosts, goblins and the Christian God (looking as most often visualized: An old man with a long white beard), representing myth and religion. But in the middle of the lantern, where the light is most intense the same figures would reappear, the only difference being that they are wearing glasses and modern pieces of garment like suits and top hats. In the bottom of the illustration, underneath the massive factory I would draw the heavily damaged nature overcome by humanity, science and technology. This would look like a forest partly chopped down and turned into mechanized agriculture: the few remaining wild animals in hiding next to personifications of the four defeated and enslaved elements. How exactly to draw human nature as a member of this repressed crowd I cannot figure out. I would like the illustration to somehow resemble a drawing from a volume of Where’s Waldo?, but the overall impression would be more dim and gloomy due to the obscure motive and the lack of bright colours. The title and the names of the authors would have to be merged in somewhere in the top and bottom respectively. I would like the letters to be in the handwriting of the illustrator rather than in a vector graphical font to keep the visual expression homogeneous.

This cover described would, in order to be both aesthetic and not entirely illegible, demand of the publication to be of quite large dimensions. Though this might be impractical at times is not solely a problem, inasmuch as it leaves room for a huge margin and thereby plenty of marginal notes.

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[1] Except the fact that Max & Theodor’s pessimistic attitudes underlines the tone of the book just fine.

an analysis of contemporary anthropologies and their ethical and political implications / a sketch for a multi-anthropological methodology.

I’ve noticed that much of the disagreement and struggle within the fields of science and politics can be traced back to differing believes in what constitutes the essence of humanity.  When for instance a particular economic theory assumes that a decline in the level of taxation will lead to an increase GNP and thereby a larger revenue, it implicitly relies upon a belief in a certain anthropology.  I’ve personally come to believe that the nature of humans is neither something static and ahistorical nor something about which we can ever acquire knowledge with a status differing from that of a mere faith.  In other words, I think anthropology should be regarded as entangled in the metaphysical foundations for knowledge, which are of paramount importance, but principally a matter of faith or confession, since no one in the last instance can claim to have unreserved insight in them. Though close to the edge of nihilism, I do not think all scientific efforts are completely redundant. Since this is the best we can do, or at least the best I can come to think of, we must stop asking to the true essence or nature of phenomena, but instead formulate the questions in a manner which reflects our uncertainty: “If we choose to regard this as the truth, what are we then able to understand?”. In this perspective academic work is to be judged by how well the supplied frames of explanation enables humans to navigate in life. This encourages to interdisciplinary academic approaches, but does not necessarily imply a rejection of the conclusions of research which does not share the belief in this approach.  Never the less, scientific practice becomes an extremely political business in this light.

I would like to investigate the anthropologies which serve as foundations for different meta-theories and discuss their ethical and socio-political implications. How do they shape possibilities of acting and understanding and how do they render certain types of arguments natural or untrustworthy? I’m especially – but not solely - interested in the naturalized and generally unchallenged foundational believes buried beneath the conclusions of respectively economic theory and natural science.  I’m also puzzled by the historical marriage between the conceptions of economy and the hard sciences. Furthermore I wish to reflect upon the possibilities of a non-totalizing, multi-anthropological approach to the social sciences. What happens if we neither take it for granted that all humans necessarily are human in the same sense, nor that the way in which they are doesn’t change? In other words, how can we engage in social sciences if we operate with numerous conceptions of humanity, hence an ambiguous perception of the social? And how are we to understand the notion of a good society in this light?