Siah
09-09-04, 20:34
Remaking Social Practices (1)
by Felix Guattari
The routines of daily life, and the banality of the world represented to
us by the media, surround us with a reassuring atmosphere in which nothing
is any longer of real consequence. We cover our eyes; we forbid ourselves
to think about the turbulent passage of our times, which swiftly thrusts
far behind us our familiar past, which effaces ways of being and living
that are still fresh in our minds, and which slaps our future onto an
opaque horizon, heavy with thick clouds and miasmas. We depend all the
more on the reassurance that nothing is assured. The two "superpowers" of
yesterday, for so long buttressed against each other, have been
destabilized by the disintegration of one among them. The countries of the
former USSR and Eastern Europe have been drawn into a drama with no
apparent outcome. The Unitited States, for its part, has not been spared
the violent upheavals of civilization, as we saw in Los Angeles. Third
World countries have not been able to shake off paralysis; Africa, in
particular, finds itself at an atrocious impasse. Ecological disasters,
famine, unemployment, the escalation of racism and xenophobia, hunt, like
so many threats, the end of this millennium. At the same time, science and
technology have evolved with extreme rapidity, supplying man with
virtually all the necessary means to solve his material problems. But
humanity has not seized upon these; it remains stupefied, powerless before
the challenges that confront it. It passively contributes to the pollution
of water and the air, to the destruction of forests, to the disturbance of
climates, to the disappearance of a multitude of living species, to the
impoverishment of the genetic capital of the biosphere, to the destruction
of natural landscapes, to the suffocation of its cities, and to the
progressive abandonment of cultural values and moral references in the
areas of human solidarity and fraternity ... Humanity seems to have lost
its head, or more precisely, its head is no longer functioning with its
body. How can it find a compass by which to reorient itself within a
modernity whose complexity overwhelms it?
To think through this complexity, to renounce, in particular, the
reductive approach of scientism when a questioning of its prejudices and
short-term interests is required: such is the necessary perspective for
entry into an era that I have qualified as "post-media", as all great
contemporary upheavals, positive or negative, are currently judged on the
basis of information filtered trough the massmedia industry, which retains
only a description of events [le petit cote evenementiel] and never
problematizes what is at stake, in its full amplitude.
It is true that it is difficult to bring individuals out of
themselves, to disengage themselves from their immediate preoccupations,
in order to reflect on the present and the future of the world. They lack
collective incitements to do so. Most older methods of communication,
reflection and dialogue have dissolved in favor of an individualism and a
solitude that are often synonymous with anxiety and neurosis. It is for
this reason, that I advocate - under the aegis of a new conjunction of
environmental ecology, social ecology and mental ecology - the invention
of new collective assemblages of enunciation concerning the couple, the
family, the school, the neighborhood, etc.
The functioning of current *mass media*, and television in
particular, runs counter to such a perspective. The tele-spectator remains
passive in front of a screen, prisoner of quasi-hypnotic relation, cut off
from the other, stripped of any awareness of responsibility.
Nevertheless, this situation is not made to last indefinetly.
Technological evolution will introduce new possibilities for interaction
between the medium and its user, and between users themselves. The
junction of the audiovisual screen, the telematic screen and the computer
screen could lead to a real reactivation of a collective sensibility and
intelligence. The current equation (media=passivity) will perhaps
disappear more quickly than one would think. Obviously, we cannot expect a
miracle from these technologies: it will all depend, ultimately, on the
capacity of groups of people to take hold of them, and apply them to
appropriate ends.
The constitution of large economic markets and homogeneous
political spaces, as Europe and the West are tending to become, will
likewise have an impact on our vision of the world. But these factors tend
in opposite directions, such that their outcome will depend on the
evolution of the power relations between social groups, which, we must
recognize, remain undefined. As industrial and economic antagonism between
the United States, Japan, and Europe is accentuated, the decrease in
production costs, the development of productivity and the conquering of
"market shares" will become increasingly high stakes, increasing
structural unemployment and leading to an always more pronounced social
"dualization" within capitalist citadels. This is not to mention their
break with the Third World, which will take a more and more conflictual
and dramatic turn, as a result of population growth.
On the other hand, the reinforcement of these large axes of power
will undoubtedly contribute to the institution of a regulation - if not of
a "planetary order" - then of a geopolitical and ecological nature. By
favoring large concentrations of resources on research objectives or on
ecological and humanitarian programs, the presence of these axes could
play a determing role in the future of humanity. But it would be, at the
same time, immoral and unrealistic to accept that the current,
quasi-Manichaen duality between rich and poor, weak and strong, would
increase indefinitely. It was unfortunately from this perspective that,
undoubtedly in spite of themselves, the signatories to the so-called
Heidelberg Appeal presented at the Rio conference were committed to the
suggestion that the fundamental choices of humanity in the area of ecology
be left to the initiatives of scientific elites (see, in *Le Monde
Diplomatique*, the editorial by Ignacio Ramonet, July of 1992, and the
article by Jean-Marc Levy-Leblond, August 1992). This proceeds from an
unbelievable scientistic myopia. How, in effect, can one not see that an
essential part of the ecological stakes of the planet arises from this
break in collective subjectivity between the rich and poor? The scientists
are to find their place within a new international democracy that they
themselves must promote. And this is not to foster the myth of their
omnipotence that advances them along this path!
How could we reconnect the head to the body, how could we join
science and technology with human values? How could we agree upon common
projects while respecting the singularity of individual positions? By what
means, in the current climate of passivity, could we unleash a mass
awakening, a new renaissance? Will fear of catastrophe be sufficient
provocation? Ecological accidents, such as Chernobyl, have certainly led
to a rousing of opinion. But it is not just a matter of brandishing
threats; it is necessary to move toward practical achievements. It is also
necessary to recall that danger can itself exert a power of fascination.
The presentiment of catastrophe can release an unconscious desire for
catastrophe a longing for nothingness, a drive to abolish. It was thus
that the German masses in the Nazi epoch lived in the grip of a fantasy of
the end of the world associated with a mythic redemption of humanity.
Emphasis must be placed, above all, on the reconstruction of a collective
dialogue capable of producing innovative practices. Without a change in
mentalities, without entry into a post-media era, there can be no enduring
hold over the environment. Yet, without modifications to the social and
material environment, there can be no change in mentalities. Here, we are
in the presence of a circle that leads me to postulate the necessity of
founding an "ecosophy" that would link environmental ecology to social
ecology and to mental ecology.
From this ecosophic perspective, there would be no question of
reconstituting a hegemonic ideology, as were the major religions or
Marxism. It is absurd, for example, for the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and the World Bank to advocate the generalization of a unique model
of growth in the Third World. Africa, Latin America, and Asia must be able
to embark on specific social and cultural paths of development.
The world market does not have to lead the production of each
group of people in the name of a notion of universal growth. Capitalist
growth remains purely quantitative, while a complex development would
essentially concern the qualitative. It is neither the preeminence of the
State (in the manner of bureaucratic socialism), nor that of the world
market (under the aegis of neo- liberal ideologies), that must dictate the
future of human activities and their essential objectives. It is thus
necessary to establish a planetary dialogue and to promote a new ethic of
difference that substitutes for current capitalist powers a politics based
on the desires of peoples. But wouldn't such an approach lead to a chaos,
as the current crisis demonstrates. On the whole, democratic chaos
is better than the Chao is that results from authoritarianism!
The individual and the group cannot avoid a certain existential
plunge into chaos. This is already what we do each night when we abandon
ourselves to the world of dreams. The main question is to know what we
gain from this plunge: a sense of disaster, or the revelation of new
outlines of the possible? Who is controlling the capitalist chaos today?
The stock market, multinationals, and, to a lesser extent, the powers of
the state! For the most part, decerebrated organizations! The existence of
a world market is certainly indispensable for the structuring of
international economic relations. But we cannot expect this market to
miraculously regulate human exchange on this planet. The real estate
market contributes to the disorder of our cities. The art market perverts
aesthetic creation. It is thus of primordial importance that, alongside
the capitalist market, there appear territorialized markets that rely on
the support of substantial formations, that affirm their modes of
valorization. Out of the capitalist chaos must come what I call
"attractors" of values: values that are diverse, heterogeneous, dissensual
[dissensuelle].
Marxists based historical movement on a necessary dialectical
progression of the class struggle. Liberal economists blindly placed their
trust in the free play of the market to resolve tensions and disparities,
and to bring about the best of worlds. And yet events confirm, if that
were necessary, that progress is neither mechanically nor dialectically
related to the class struggle, to the development of science and
technology, to economic growth, or to the free play of the market .....
Growth is not synonymous with progress, as the barbaric resurgence of
social and urban confrontations, inter-ethnic conflicts and world- wide
economic tensions cruelly reveals.
Social and moral progress is inseparable from the collective and
individual practices that advance it. Nazism and fascism were not
transitory maladies, the accidents of history, thereafter overcome. They
constitute potentialities that are always present; they continue to
inhabit our universe of virtuality; the Stalinism of the Gulag, Maoist
despotism, can reappear tomorrow in new contexts. In various forms, a
microfascism proliferates in our societies, manifested in racism,
xenophobia, the rise of religious fundamentalisms, militarism, and the
oppression of women. History does not guarantee the irreversible crossing
of "progressive thresholds". Only human practices, a collective
voluntarism, can guard us against falling into worse barbarities. In this
respect, it would be altogether illusory to leave it up to formal
imperatives for the defense of the "rights of man" or "rights of peoples".
Rights are not guaranteed by a divine authority; they depend on the
vitality of the institutions and power formations that sustain their
existence.
voor het vervolg zie attachment
by Felix Guattari
The routines of daily life, and the banality of the world represented to
us by the media, surround us with a reassuring atmosphere in which nothing
is any longer of real consequence. We cover our eyes; we forbid ourselves
to think about the turbulent passage of our times, which swiftly thrusts
far behind us our familiar past, which effaces ways of being and living
that are still fresh in our minds, and which slaps our future onto an
opaque horizon, heavy with thick clouds and miasmas. We depend all the
more on the reassurance that nothing is assured. The two "superpowers" of
yesterday, for so long buttressed against each other, have been
destabilized by the disintegration of one among them. The countries of the
former USSR and Eastern Europe have been drawn into a drama with no
apparent outcome. The Unitited States, for its part, has not been spared
the violent upheavals of civilization, as we saw in Los Angeles. Third
World countries have not been able to shake off paralysis; Africa, in
particular, finds itself at an atrocious impasse. Ecological disasters,
famine, unemployment, the escalation of racism and xenophobia, hunt, like
so many threats, the end of this millennium. At the same time, science and
technology have evolved with extreme rapidity, supplying man with
virtually all the necessary means to solve his material problems. But
humanity has not seized upon these; it remains stupefied, powerless before
the challenges that confront it. It passively contributes to the pollution
of water and the air, to the destruction of forests, to the disturbance of
climates, to the disappearance of a multitude of living species, to the
impoverishment of the genetic capital of the biosphere, to the destruction
of natural landscapes, to the suffocation of its cities, and to the
progressive abandonment of cultural values and moral references in the
areas of human solidarity and fraternity ... Humanity seems to have lost
its head, or more precisely, its head is no longer functioning with its
body. How can it find a compass by which to reorient itself within a
modernity whose complexity overwhelms it?
To think through this complexity, to renounce, in particular, the
reductive approach of scientism when a questioning of its prejudices and
short-term interests is required: such is the necessary perspective for
entry into an era that I have qualified as "post-media", as all great
contemporary upheavals, positive or negative, are currently judged on the
basis of information filtered trough the massmedia industry, which retains
only a description of events [le petit cote evenementiel] and never
problematizes what is at stake, in its full amplitude.
It is true that it is difficult to bring individuals out of
themselves, to disengage themselves from their immediate preoccupations,
in order to reflect on the present and the future of the world. They lack
collective incitements to do so. Most older methods of communication,
reflection and dialogue have dissolved in favor of an individualism and a
solitude that are often synonymous with anxiety and neurosis. It is for
this reason, that I advocate - under the aegis of a new conjunction of
environmental ecology, social ecology and mental ecology - the invention
of new collective assemblages of enunciation concerning the couple, the
family, the school, the neighborhood, etc.
The functioning of current *mass media*, and television in
particular, runs counter to such a perspective. The tele-spectator remains
passive in front of a screen, prisoner of quasi-hypnotic relation, cut off
from the other, stripped of any awareness of responsibility.
Nevertheless, this situation is not made to last indefinetly.
Technological evolution will introduce new possibilities for interaction
between the medium and its user, and between users themselves. The
junction of the audiovisual screen, the telematic screen and the computer
screen could lead to a real reactivation of a collective sensibility and
intelligence. The current equation (media=passivity) will perhaps
disappear more quickly than one would think. Obviously, we cannot expect a
miracle from these technologies: it will all depend, ultimately, on the
capacity of groups of people to take hold of them, and apply them to
appropriate ends.
The constitution of large economic markets and homogeneous
political spaces, as Europe and the West are tending to become, will
likewise have an impact on our vision of the world. But these factors tend
in opposite directions, such that their outcome will depend on the
evolution of the power relations between social groups, which, we must
recognize, remain undefined. As industrial and economic antagonism between
the United States, Japan, and Europe is accentuated, the decrease in
production costs, the development of productivity and the conquering of
"market shares" will become increasingly high stakes, increasing
structural unemployment and leading to an always more pronounced social
"dualization" within capitalist citadels. This is not to mention their
break with the Third World, which will take a more and more conflictual
and dramatic turn, as a result of population growth.
On the other hand, the reinforcement of these large axes of power
will undoubtedly contribute to the institution of a regulation - if not of
a "planetary order" - then of a geopolitical and ecological nature. By
favoring large concentrations of resources on research objectives or on
ecological and humanitarian programs, the presence of these axes could
play a determing role in the future of humanity. But it would be, at the
same time, immoral and unrealistic to accept that the current,
quasi-Manichaen duality between rich and poor, weak and strong, would
increase indefinitely. It was unfortunately from this perspective that,
undoubtedly in spite of themselves, the signatories to the so-called
Heidelberg Appeal presented at the Rio conference were committed to the
suggestion that the fundamental choices of humanity in the area of ecology
be left to the initiatives of scientific elites (see, in *Le Monde
Diplomatique*, the editorial by Ignacio Ramonet, July of 1992, and the
article by Jean-Marc Levy-Leblond, August 1992). This proceeds from an
unbelievable scientistic myopia. How, in effect, can one not see that an
essential part of the ecological stakes of the planet arises from this
break in collective subjectivity between the rich and poor? The scientists
are to find their place within a new international democracy that they
themselves must promote. And this is not to foster the myth of their
omnipotence that advances them along this path!
How could we reconnect the head to the body, how could we join
science and technology with human values? How could we agree upon common
projects while respecting the singularity of individual positions? By what
means, in the current climate of passivity, could we unleash a mass
awakening, a new renaissance? Will fear of catastrophe be sufficient
provocation? Ecological accidents, such as Chernobyl, have certainly led
to a rousing of opinion. But it is not just a matter of brandishing
threats; it is necessary to move toward practical achievements. It is also
necessary to recall that danger can itself exert a power of fascination.
The presentiment of catastrophe can release an unconscious desire for
catastrophe a longing for nothingness, a drive to abolish. It was thus
that the German masses in the Nazi epoch lived in the grip of a fantasy of
the end of the world associated with a mythic redemption of humanity.
Emphasis must be placed, above all, on the reconstruction of a collective
dialogue capable of producing innovative practices. Without a change in
mentalities, without entry into a post-media era, there can be no enduring
hold over the environment. Yet, without modifications to the social and
material environment, there can be no change in mentalities. Here, we are
in the presence of a circle that leads me to postulate the necessity of
founding an "ecosophy" that would link environmental ecology to social
ecology and to mental ecology.
From this ecosophic perspective, there would be no question of
reconstituting a hegemonic ideology, as were the major religions or
Marxism. It is absurd, for example, for the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and the World Bank to advocate the generalization of a unique model
of growth in the Third World. Africa, Latin America, and Asia must be able
to embark on specific social and cultural paths of development.
The world market does not have to lead the production of each
group of people in the name of a notion of universal growth. Capitalist
growth remains purely quantitative, while a complex development would
essentially concern the qualitative. It is neither the preeminence of the
State (in the manner of bureaucratic socialism), nor that of the world
market (under the aegis of neo- liberal ideologies), that must dictate the
future of human activities and their essential objectives. It is thus
necessary to establish a planetary dialogue and to promote a new ethic of
difference that substitutes for current capitalist powers a politics based
on the desires of peoples. But wouldn't such an approach lead to a chaos,
as the current crisis demonstrates. On the whole, democratic chaos
is better than the Chao is that results from authoritarianism!
The individual and the group cannot avoid a certain existential
plunge into chaos. This is already what we do each night when we abandon
ourselves to the world of dreams. The main question is to know what we
gain from this plunge: a sense of disaster, or the revelation of new
outlines of the possible? Who is controlling the capitalist chaos today?
The stock market, multinationals, and, to a lesser extent, the powers of
the state! For the most part, decerebrated organizations! The existence of
a world market is certainly indispensable for the structuring of
international economic relations. But we cannot expect this market to
miraculously regulate human exchange on this planet. The real estate
market contributes to the disorder of our cities. The art market perverts
aesthetic creation. It is thus of primordial importance that, alongside
the capitalist market, there appear territorialized markets that rely on
the support of substantial formations, that affirm their modes of
valorization. Out of the capitalist chaos must come what I call
"attractors" of values: values that are diverse, heterogeneous, dissensual
[dissensuelle].
Marxists based historical movement on a necessary dialectical
progression of the class struggle. Liberal economists blindly placed their
trust in the free play of the market to resolve tensions and disparities,
and to bring about the best of worlds. And yet events confirm, if that
were necessary, that progress is neither mechanically nor dialectically
related to the class struggle, to the development of science and
technology, to economic growth, or to the free play of the market .....
Growth is not synonymous with progress, as the barbaric resurgence of
social and urban confrontations, inter-ethnic conflicts and world- wide
economic tensions cruelly reveals.
Social and moral progress is inseparable from the collective and
individual practices that advance it. Nazism and fascism were not
transitory maladies, the accidents of history, thereafter overcome. They
constitute potentialities that are always present; they continue to
inhabit our universe of virtuality; the Stalinism of the Gulag, Maoist
despotism, can reappear tomorrow in new contexts. In various forms, a
microfascism proliferates in our societies, manifested in racism,
xenophobia, the rise of religious fundamentalisms, militarism, and the
oppression of women. History does not guarantee the irreversible crossing
of "progressive thresholds". Only human practices, a collective
voluntarism, can guard us against falling into worse barbarities. In this
respect, it would be altogether illusory to leave it up to formal
imperatives for the defense of the "rights of man" or "rights of peoples".
Rights are not guaranteed by a divine authority; they depend on the
vitality of the institutions and power formations that sustain their
existence.
voor het vervolg zie attachment