Anti-humanist Anarchism : by "Joff" (part three)
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C(ha)osmos
Guattari's later work unequivocally aligns itself with thinking of a
green hue. Guattari's Les Trois Ecologies will receive examination
here. A triadic ecology problematises the subject/object dualism.
The subject is decentralised and configured from an exteriority of
components (the unconscious, the body). Guattari names these as
components of subjectification. The hermetic self-certain interiority
articulated by Descartes is questioned by Guattari for its
one-dimensional emphasis. There are other `ways of existing' which
would seem to be irreducible to the `realm of consciousness'.
Guattari is principally interested in the possible emergence of new
paradigms of ethico-aesthetic thinking and praxis. Such paradigms
rethink the relationship between human subjectivity and the context
(environment) within which it engages. Subjectivity seems to imply
the role of the unconscious in relation to the human and natural
environment. In comparison, Bookchin's analysis of the unconscious is
conspicuously absent in his philosophy. With emphasis upon the
creative potentiality of subjectivity or new ways of existing,
Guattari looks toward the future. He is in effect offering a
`futurist agenda'. Such a futurist agenda attempts to think the
intersection of the human with cybernetics and more particularly with
computer-aided subjectivity. In schizoanalysing the ecological , a
cartography of subjectivity transcends predefined territorial limits
(the orthodoxy of Oedipus for example) with the formation of new
perspectives `without prior recourse to assured theoretical
foundations or the authority of a group, school, conservatory, or
academy'. New perspectives emerge from the intersection of social,
mental, and environmental ecologies. The triadic intersection of the
socius , the psyche, and `nature', Guattari believes, is an essential
nodal point for decoding the general degradation of social
relationships, the mind, and the environment. Guattari refuses to
separate the elements of the triad. In schizoanalytic language, they
form an assemblage. Schizoanalytical social ecology challenges the
dualism between nature and culture with the perception that nature
and culture are inseparable. Neither `human work' or the `natural
habitat' are legitimate either/or choices. A `transversal'
understanding of the interactions between ecosystems, the
`mechanosphere' and social and individual universes of reference is
encouraged by Guattari in order to rethink the possible detrimental
effects of isolated social, psychological and environmental
ecologies. It should be noted Guattari is arguing from an
anthropocentric as opposed to biocentric viewpoint. Guattari and Negri claim that
communism's `call to life' celebrates the slender hope of a reconfigured human solidarity.
However, this observation needs to be balanced for the argument presupposes the very
dualism which is brought into question. Guattari does not wish to rehearse traditional
debates. In a very important sense he is calling
for a new eco-logic. This eco-logic is a `logic of intensities' which
examines `the movement and intensity of evolutive processes'. What
Guattari is seeking to describe are `processual lines of flight' that
are secreted from entrenched totalities and identities. In other words
Guattari is attempting to think of one off events which once combined
with subjective assemblages provide examples of new existential
configurations in which social, psychic and natural elements function
in a nondestructive milieu.
The political project of triadic ecological praxes is the affirmation
of new forms of subjectivity (new forms of knowledge, culture,
sensibility, and sociability). The social ecologies of Bookchin and
Guattari both see capitalism as a system of economics hostile to the
life of ecosystems. Yet, Guattari is innovative from the viewpoint of
capitalism's tactic of `intension', that is to say, the way
capitalism nestles into `unconscious levels of subjectivity'.
Guattari drives the point home: `It has become imperative to confront
the effects of capitalist power on the mental ecology of daily life,
whether individual, domestic, conjugal, neighbourly, creative, or
personal-ethical'. Processes of re-singularisation and the practice
of the art of dissensus rather than a `mind-numbing' or levelling
consensus are defended by Guattari as tactics to de-stabilise
capitalist subjectivity. It must be borne in mind that Guattari is
advancing a generalised ecology which incorporates the `whole of
subjectivity and capitalist power formations'. A generalised ecology
eschews a sole concern for the welfare of animals or trees. Yet, it
also refuses to rigidly demarcate the three ecologies. The art of the
eco endeavours to formulate this kind of `praxis openness'. On the
subject of mental ecology and the ambivalence of desire, Guattari
makes the interesting point that violence is the consequence of
complex subjective assemblages and not an essential attribute of the
human species. Guattari maintains that violence is not `intrinsically
inscribed in the essence of the human species'. This would seem to
trouble Bookchin's alignment of Deleuze and Guattari with an
anti-humanism. Bookchin is eager to denounce those he sees as
condemning the human species (or what he calls humanity) for its
apparently disastrous effects upon the environment. If capitalism or
Integrated World Capitalism (Guattari's concept) is to be challenged
then new values, and new ecological praxes must be invented. Guattari
believes that an environmental ecology of the future ought to be much
more than a `mere defence of nature'. It is worth quoting Guattari
in full here:
Increasingly in future, the maintenance of natural equilibria will be
dependent upon human intervention; the time will come, for example,
when massive programmes will have to be set in train to regulate the
relationship between oxygen, ozone, and carbon dioxide in the earth's
atmosphere. In this perspective, environmental ecology could equally
be re-named "machinic ecology", since both cosmic and human practice
are nothing if not machinic - indeed they are machines of war, in so
far as "Nature" has always been at war with life!"
What Guattari means by the comment that `Nature' has always been at
war with life is far from clear. Furthermore, Guattari's demand for
an ethics and politics fitting for the technological developments
which are under way in respect of the `general destiny of humanity'
is even less clear. Yet, Guattari's continual reference to humanity
ought to repel the designation of Guattari as a vulgar anti-humanist.
Moreover, Guattari's open call for a return of the practice of
resingularisation and his affirmation of the art of dissensus rather
than `neo-liberal consensus' does not necessarily imply that Guattari
was anti-universalist. Contra Ferry's reading of differential
thinking , resingularisation (process of becoming and mode of
experimentation) does not necessarily imply universalism (legal
rights for the whole of humanity). What Guattari points toward are
the technological developments (data-processing, genetic engineering)
which mean that the definitions of the human being are increasingly
subject to forces of an alien and exterior nature. Such a subjection
requires a rethinking of the human subject in relation to its
environment and its future(s).
Postmodern Nihilism
A hindered and bleak perspective regarding postmodernism inevitably
reads postmodernism as nihilistic. Such an ungenerous perspective is
evident in the work of Bookchin. Hardly alien to idiosyncrasy itself,
anarchism ought to find it fruitful to listen openly to the (dark)
theorists of the postmodern. Instead of outlawing the apparently
idiosyncratic `philosophical tendencies' of Foucault, Deleuze et al,
it is better to seek common ground than to secrete a theoretical
xenophobia of sorts. Bookchin is correct in noting the post-modern
question mark next to an unreflective affirmation of economic,
market-driven progress. Bookchin's perspective is however myopic with
respect to postmodernism's disillusionment in progress (progress for
the sake of progress) for a disillusionment is also convalescence, a
time for reflection, and is preparatory for an affirmation of human
identity and destiny upon albeit radically renewed lines. For the
purposes of this thesis, Foucault and Deleuze will be defended
against Bookchin's reading of `postmodern nihilism', though Bookchin
is obviously correct in noting Deleuze and Guattari's questioning of
grand narratives. Obviously if we reject all grand narratives then
social ecology's grand narrative of human liberation must also be
rejected. The May-June evenements of 1968 are of utmost importance if
we are to understand the impetus behind `leftist' postmodernism. At
times, Bookchin seems to echo Jameson's conclusions concerning the
phenomena of postmodernism. Bookchin in chartering the tendencies of
postmodernism contends:
Postmodern is not only a nihilistic reaction to the failures imputed
to Enlightenment ideals of reason, science, and progress but more
proximately a cultural reaction to the failures of various socialisms
to achieve a rational society in France and elsewhere in our country.
From Bookchin's Hegelian perspective, it is consistent to view a
philosophy which reads otherness and difference to be positive, as
hostile to Hegel's grand narrative of the unfolding and omnivorous
`Spirit'. One of the chief problems of Bookchin's rejection of
postmodernism is its failure to critique the very ideas which are
densely articulated. Instead, a sociology of knowledge is provided
which is blandly Marxist in the correlation of a fragmentary economic
system and ideas which express that fragmentation. The content of
postmodern ideas is not under the microscope of analysis. Bookchin
instead connects the social function of philosophy with the
prevailing economic system. Postmodernism from this perspective is
merely an ideological support for the febrility of contemporary
civilisation. But let us remember that Bookchin is writing from a
political and anarchist point of view. Basically, Bookchin's
rejection of postmodernism is anchored in its questioning of the
intellectual value of truth, objectivity (as opposed to relativism),
rationality (as opposed to mysticism), progress (as opposed to
romanticism), and universality (as opposed to the particular and
irrecuperable). Such values ground anarchist philosophy in the
Enlightenment tradition. Thus, from Bookchin's perspective,
oppositional movements which suffer from the de-valuation of all
hitherto Enlightenment values are unable to engender effective and
lasting radical change. One objection to Bookchin's reading of
Foucault will serve as a linchpin for one of the main arguments of
this thesis. Bookchin recognises Foucault's historical disclosure of
domination and oppression (which conceals itself under the name of
institutional rationality and the humane treatment of abnormality).
Yet Bookchin refuses to accept the thesis that there is a dark side,
perhaps even a necessary dark side, of rationality and humanism.
Foucault's inventive and thought-provoking analysis of power ought to
be of interest to anarchism, for Foucault refuses to echo and
rehearse the mantra that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts
absolutely (orthodox anarchism is contra the State - the extreme site
for the concentration of power). Power in Foucault's terms is neither
good nor bad, it is a question above all of flux (the metaphor of the
capillary nature of power has obvious affinities with a rhizomatic
conception of desire) and the congealment of power, not about whether
freedom is present if power is absent. The distinction between power
and force is permissible if we see force as a wild presence which
emanates from `outside' of power's confines. Force as such is
transgressive for it is capable of breaking entrenched power
formations and opening new vistas. Power is akin to the fortress, it
is a form of territory construction. Power in this sense is the
domestication of force. To identify coercion, domination, and
repression and the like as essential expressions of power relations
is to see only one half of the picture. Following Nietzsche, Foucault
believes that power is best heuristically viewed as possessing
positive as well as negative facets. Thus, to concentrate on the
negativity of power is to fail to locate the actual manifestations of
power itself. Emancipation from the `contaminating' effects of power
is thus to misinterpret its workings. The dichotomy between freedom
and power is thus a false opposition. Foucault would object to the
Frankfurt School's Ideologiekritik. The Frankfurt School deludes
itself in thinking that real interest would be transparent in the
absence of social coercion. For Foucault power is not necessarily
repressive, it does not necessarily universally always cause
suffering. For Foucault, power is sometimes something to be enjoyed.
Power is not a property of class membership, it is not a property at
all in the real sense, rather it is a strategy. The notion of a
strategy of power is reminiscent of Gramsci's work. Power permeates
society in a multiplicity of localised forms, it is not something
symbolised simply in the sovereign. Thus, we can see straight away
the divorce between Foucault and orthodox anarchism whose eternal
bete-noir is the State. The micro-physics of power identifies power
as operating both inside and outside of the State-apparatus.
Therefore, to abolish the State does not by itself transform the
network of power relations which exist as a complex strategy spread
throughout the social system. The `ensemble of ideas' labelled
Enlightenment humanism is defended by Bookchin from the parries of
`bitter opponents' such as Deleuze and Guattari. Bookchin believes
that Deleuze and Guattari in formulating a differing conception of
philosophy and reason enter into a game of wild abandon in which
anything goes. Yet, it ought to be noted that Deleuze and Guattari
are interested in the underbelly of Occidental reason which escapes
dogmatic thought. They follow Nietzsche in this respect, in the sense
that Nietzsche asks the peculiar and uprooting question: `Granted we
want truth: why not rather untruth?' If we take things at face value
we forget that there is always another face to the problem. A
Nietzschean perspective inquires why this face is never examined.
Bookchin here fails to grasp the subtlety of this mode of thinking.
Bookchin conceives that anti-Oedipal strategies remain bound to
evanescent, local and individual occurrences and thus fail to answer
the wider social questions which explore the potentiality for
liberation of populations and societies (free from domination and
hierarchy). This reading of desiring-machines as essentially insular
and hermetic machinic assemblages is rejected by Massumi who contends
that: `Becomings are everywhere in capitalism, but they are always
separated from their full potential, from the thing they need most to
run their course: a population free for the mutating'. Massumi
demonstrates a concern for the destruction of nature when he makes
the telling point that: `The absolute limit of capitalism must be
shifted back from planetary death to becoming-other'. What is of
significance for Massumi and others are the lines of flight rather
than the lines of death that both equally are secreted out from the
machinic workings of Capital. To drive the point home:
The equilibrium of the physical environment must be established, so
that cultures may go on living and learn to live more intensely at a
state far from equilibrium. Depletion must end, that we may devote
ourselves to our true destiny: dissipation.
The value, celebration and examination of local upsurges and
ephemeral confrontations is precisely a lacuna which dilutes the
impact Bookchin's analysis. Bookchin is also inconsistent in two
significant places. Firstly, in order to affirm the fertility of
Deleuze's affirmative philosophy we will look at the relationship
between PS and anarchism more closely. It will be argued that
Bookchin's social ecology was pre-programmed to forsake a potential
ally primarily because of the presuppositions derived from a Hegelian
heritage. Secondly, the `nomadological politics' of Deleuze and
Guattari and the `insurrectionary' politics of Foucault offer a
tactical and political methodology for confronting congealed power
relations and for understanding the cancerous birth of micro-fascism.
Bookchin fails to assess the possible productive relationship between
the affinity group (classical anarchism's model of social
organisation) and the local and temporal coalitions of
`nomadological' revolutionaries. If anarchism cannot function in the
absence of overarching and transcendent principles then anarchism
runs the risk of abandoning fruitful tactical coalitions along
ecological, racial, class and gender lines. Ironically, Bookchin in
his celebration of 1968 endorses the very molecular revolutions
Deleuze and Guattari sought to theorise concretely. Bookchin spoke
thus:
It is clear that a molecular process was going on in France,
completely invisible to the most conscious revolutionaries, a process
that the barricades precipitated into revolutionary action.
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