What in the hell …

No, no, not a cry for help! Negatron’s got a post up reviewing Massimo De Angelis’s book The Beginning of History, check it out. The post begins with a funny opening:

This is going to sound terrible, but I will say it anyway: the problem with any living philosopher, or political theorist is that they go on living. When a philosopher dies a space opens up between their texts and whatever contemporary problem or situation which one might want to address. It is debatable that Spinoza would recognize himself in the idea of the multitude, or if Bergson would embrace the vitalist accounts of contemporary society, but this does not matter. As long as a philosopher is still alive, capable of commenting on current events, then it is tempting to take their word as the last word on the matter at hand.

I initially misread the opening (typical). I thought it said “the problem for any living philosopher, or political theorist is that they have to go on living.” As in, folk wrestle with motivation. This is a freudian slip of sorts, reading my own motivation problems into the post. I don’t have any problem going on living , but I do have trouble staying motivated about some political stuff, making a political life. Some of this is lack of motivation to do needed and work and some of it is just feeling tired while I do that work. As I’ve said, I don’t buy the ‘politics should be joyful’ thing that some friends and comrades are into. Abolishing the bad old order is not immediately identical with the existence of the new good order. Achieving good things often sucks en route (and maintaining good things involves stuff that’s less than fun too, though necessary - diaper changing is just one example).

Anyhow, it seems to me that there are maybe two or three things that people need w/ in their world or outlook to hang in there. One is a peg on which to hang hopes. For folk in theory circles this is often a theoretical peg - capitalism is doomed because of the inevitable fall in the rate of profit; capitalism can’t eliminate resistance because resistance is always possible within the sale of labor power, a condition which capitalism is dependent on; and so on. There’s other sorts of pegs too, looking to past examples of positive results - Russia 1917! Minneapolis 1934! Spain 1936! Hungary 1956! Everywhere 1968! Chiapas 1994! Argentina 2001!

Folk also need a peg on which to hang (or a tack in the shoe with which to generate) their outrage. This too can be theoretical or historical.

I think both of these pegs (hope and outrage) and both types (theoretical and historical) are important, and I don’t have an argument about what sort matters more. I think preferences for one or the other are just that, preferences, and the advisability of one or the other is contextual. (At this point I personally favor anger over hope and pegs cut from history rather than theory, but again this is preference and not an argument - and perhaps there’s a link between this preference and my low motivation, I dunno.)

I think both of these are primarily a matter of narratives or myths. I’m not against that, I’m all for it, but I think it’s important to recognize that neither sort has any necessary relationship to analyzing and understanding the present, nor any any necessary relationship to formulating positive (programmatic?) action steps in the present.

Another part of the narrative needed is that when action steps do occur we find something in them that encourages us (or at least allows us) to keep on keeping on. This function is crucial. Agai, though, it’s different from drawing lessons in terms of what to do next. Celebrating our victories, even if that means some difficult interpretive work to make our victories appear as victories, is important for keeping going. Celebrating victories, like hope and anger, are about securing that we keep going. But securing THAT we keep going is different from WHAT we do and how and how we figure out what’s a good idea and so on. Myth is largely about motivation, and motivation is not self-interpreting, it doesn’t make decisions for us or provide a process for making plans. That’s not a failing, but we need to be clear on this, what it is a tool is for. At this point, I can use the motivational myths again, to recover my political optimism, but I don’t want to fall back into the mistake I used to make of acting like optimism is a sufficient political program.