Immanent Critique and the Argument from Authority


Pastiche - which, as Jameson notes, is characteristic of postmodernism - is difficult to overcome.  It is difficult even to imagine overcoming it.  This is one aspect of the larger problem that it is less difficult to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism. How can one overcome pastiche?  Only through immanent critique.  (The immanent critique of pastiche itself - that is a fascinating and provocative proposition.)

It is an understandable misunderstanding to assume that immanent critique is characterized by a sarcastic attitude. Might one provisionally accept the methodological presuppositions of that which one is critiquing?  Perhaps.  Does this necessarily entail some amount of irony?  Maybe.  But for immanent critique to work, it demands a profound seriousness and dedication taken all the way to the end and beyond.  One must "play it straight."

For that reason, the danger of miscommunication lies in the opposite direction from sarcasm. The more thoroughly one accomplishes immanent critique, the more closely it will resemble the argument from authority.  So much so that it can, on occasion, be difficult for the reader to distinguish between the two.

Foucault did much to revive the reference to the name of the author, examining the "author-function" and describing its many facets, its necessary multiplicity and heterogeneity.  We can add to this story the myth of immanent critique: if Beckett asks, "What does it matter who is speaking?" and what does it matter which author wrote what, we may reply: even if this author is dead, an entire living regime of discourse carries on their practice under the sign of this name.  If I cite a name, or use the characteristic vocabulary of this discourse, it is not to give myself precedent and an air of authority, but precisely to undermine this very authority, from within. 

To overcome Ayn Rand, I adopt her method and show how she fails her own principles.  I do the same to overcome the methodology of Austrian economics.  And I do the same with the founders of the United States and its Constitution.  I have never been a Foucauldian, or a Jamesonian, or a Hegelian.  Nor, at any point, have I ever been a Marxist.  I quote from Marx to show why a commitment to Marx's own method forces us to go beyond Marx. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Liquefactionism

Image
“To Dissolve Man” An Investigation into the Liquefactionist Party In the 21st century, we will have to deal both with the odious Liquefactionists and with a confused and reactionary anti-Liquefactionism, which is far more apparent and obviously horrifying. I borrow the term “Liquefactionist Party” from William S. Burroughs, who writes about the Liquefactionists in the “Parties of Interzone” section of Naked Lunch - which, as a political policy guide, is unmatched in its insight and accuracy.  He writes that, “ The Liquefaction program involves the eventual merging of everyone into One Man by a process of protoplasmic absorption. ”  He goes on: “It will be immediately clear that the Liquefaction Party is, except for one man, entirely composed of dupes, it not being clear until the final absorption who is whose dupe.” Paradoxically, Burroughs goes on to tell us that “Liquefactionists in general know what the score is.”  If they know the score, how can they be dupes?  Perhaps thi
Read more

Why Capitalism is Ending

Image
THE PRODUCTIVITY BOMB Sorry, Ray Kurzweil , there will be no singularity.  As much as Moore’s Law has become a cliche, it has also become a cliche to point out that exponential growth has no "knee" - that is to say, that an exponential growth curve has no inflection point.  It goes up faster and faster, so that not only is the value rising but the derivative of the value is also rising (that is, the rate of increase is itself increasing) yet at any given point it is still a gradual increase.  Growth that gets indefinitely huger as it approaches a specific point of time, a limit known as a singularity, is not exponential growth but rather hyperbolic growth .  There’s no evidence that technology is growing hyperbolically; it is “only” growing exponentially.  Gordon Moore himself has stated that he doesn't believe in the singularity, or even in the continuation of Moore's Law.   (And Moore's Law is starting to fail, anyway ... )  But it hard
Read more

Why Ayn Rand was Wrong

  It is a pet theory of mine that the "greatness" or "importance" of a philosopher is mostly determined by that philosopher's subsequent degree of influence on a government leader.  Would we still talk about Socrates, if his student Critias had not taken over Athens as the leader of the Dictatorship of the Thirty?  Would we talk about Aristotle, had he not tutored Alexander, who later became Alexander the Great and took over a vast part of the ancient world?  Would we remember Rousseau, had not Robespierre declared him "divine"?  Or Locke and Montesquieu, had not the founders of the United States revered them?  The esteem given to the philosophy by professional professors within the academy matters less, and its internal coherence, or insight, or truth matters less still.  By this measure, Ayn Rand is, unfortunately, the most important philosopher of the 20th century.   Even though she is barely noticed by philosophy departments, Ayn Rand is massively
Read more