Anàlisi sensorial

A skeptical post-modern political orientation is grounded in a whole range of views presented in previous chapters. The skeptics embrace a political cynicism that is appropriate given their conception of modernity as a pe- riod of decay; the world as inevitably moving toward a final collapse, obliv- ion, and self-destruction that cannot be postponed (Jay 1988: 5-6; Redner 1987: 677). The skeptics ontologica! agnosticism urges them to relinquish any global political projects. Their epistemological relativism means their political views necessarily deny privilege. Decisive political conclusions al- most always imply a foundational basis, and the skeptics shy away from such assertions. They call for tolerance of a range of meanings, a plurality of political beliefs without advocating any of them. These post-modernists struggle to survive in a normative void that therefore cannot go beyond political critique.

The skeptical post-modernists view the political as a "construction" in the sense that any political stance originates not in conclusive generaliza- tions but in uncertainties, subjective interpretations, and contradictions. Political understandings are equally conditional and unsure because there is no basis for deciding one political strategy is "better" than another on the basis of fact, truth, or science; so a tentativeness results, and the polit- ical world is peopled by individuals, leaders, and followers, who themselves are "constructions" that originate in the eye of the observer (Edelman 1988: 123). There is no room here for justice or righteousness, or any desire to instill moral, self-sacrificing political beliefs, or any effort to incite exemplary forms of political action.

The most consistent skeptical post-modernists avoid judgment even when talking about modern conventional political orientations. They do not label them as "bad," "oppressive," "right-wing," or "left-wing." Any analysis that held modern political systems to be biased, distorted, or im- perialist would be judgmental (Henriques et al. 1984: 1). Skeptical post- modernists strive to employ terms that do not imply anything pejorative when characterizing modern political systems as constituting, producing, regulating, classifying, or administering. They would not call for the over- throw of a political system, but they might propose to "unsettle" or decon- struct conventional political systems (Henriques et al. 1984: 11).

The skeptics' anti-representational and anti-democratic political views, outlined in Chapter 6, need not be repeated here. Many skeptics, it will be recalled, argue that nonparticipation in politics is a healthy, protest re-

sponse to modern representation, to the corruption of representative de- mocracy, to modern politics that is "inevitably remote, uninteresting and irrelevant" (Edelman 1988: 7-8).l These skeptics consider it better to withdraw approval from representative democracy (Ferry and Renaut

1985: 100, 164).

Given the skeptic's belief in the demise of a viable public sphere, the end of history, the absence of truth, and the death of the author (as a responsible agent), it is not surprising that they might refuse to advocate action, that they are anti-participatory or indifferent with respect to politics. Little re- sults, they contend, from dramatic, heroic political commitment. Revolu- tions "have been betrayed, reforms have been counterproductive, and even resistance has been undone." Modern politicians are "worthless, corrupt, or absurd"; the political systems they direct are without redeeming quali- ties (Nelson 1987).2 This pessimism applies not only to mainstream polit- ical participation but also to left and right political organizations and to the new social movements supported by the affirmative post-modernists and discussed below (Kellner 1989b: chap. 5; Sloterdijk 1987; Corlett 1989: 216-17). The skeptics interpret low levels of political participation (at least in the United States) as indicative of a refusal to be taken in (Ed- elman 1988: 7—8). To actively work for political or social change, to "bet on liberation, emancipation, the resurrection of the subject," is to act in accordance with the "political logic of the system." It is to play into the hands of the oppressor, to accept "subjecthood" (Levin and Kroker 1984: 15-16; Baudrillard 1983a: 107-9). It brings only marginal, temporary change that "acts as a balm" for those who engage in it (Edelman 1988: 130). If history has ended and if there is "no future" (Baudrillard 1989b: 34), then any struggle for social change is meaningless because individual human beings are powerless to influence government and society anyway. To refuse to participate, to cultivate "ironic detachment" (Baudrillard 1983a: 108-9), becomes a positive, progressive political stance. The masses express genuine and authentically revolutionary sentiments, con- crete resistance when their needs and desires are tapped, but it takes the form of a nonreception, of a refusal to participate (Baudrillard 1983a: 105—6). The masses reject the rational, reasoned logic of those who seek to mobilize them around modern political projects. They are simple, un-

1

See Botwinick (1990) for an interesting exception. Seeking a synthesis of continental and American forms of post-modernism—perhaps of what are here called affirmative and skeptical post-modernism—this author suggests that because certainty is impossible, because there is no truth, because all interpretations are more or less interesting, all opinions must be taken seriously; this, therefore, results in a radical egalitarianism, and it is a "continually renewing impetus for the expansion of political participation."

2

This, of course, violates the post-modern attempt to avoid judgment. This contradiction is discussed in Chapter 9.

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complicated, intuitive, rightfully and justifiably cynical about politics. Stra- tegic resistance in the form of indifference is a refuge against the kind of political engagement that could monopolize one's time and dominate one's life (Baudrillard 1983a: 39, 105-6).

In support of post-modern withdrawal, Edelman argues that high levels of political participation have lead to slaughter, repression, and genocide in the name of nationalism and patriotism. He concludes the world would be better off without any of it (Edelman 1988: 8). In the extreme we have Baudrillard who tells us that political participation makes little sense be- cause everything of interest has already happened: the revolution has al- ready taken place, the atomic bomb has already exploded so, therefore, why worry (1989b: 34—35)? It is too late to oppose the momentum of industrialized society. All one can do is abandon "extrinsic objectives. . . . Stay alert and cool in its midst . . . , be passionately impassive" (Kariel 1989: ix).

Critics argue there is something unhealthy about the political orienta- tion of the skeptics—their turn inward and their concentration on the self. The skeptics are anti-determinist, pro-individualist, even narcissistic; they refuse all responsibility for what goes on in the society around them. Their retreat from the political may reflect their concern with self-development, self-expression, self-awareness, and self-affirmation, or it may simply be self-indulgent in the sense that each person decides for himself or herself

what constitutes political truth.

The only forms of positive political action of interest to the skeptics are those that violate modern conceptions of the normal and those that display ironic contempt for the political. These forms of "detached" participation are not aimed at a positive project of establishing and maintaining. They, rather, incorporate the implicit goal of dissolving and attacking in forms that range from harmless playful pastimes to terrorism (Aronowitz 1988a: 49) and the darker preoccupation with death and suicide. Self-oriented narcissistic pursuits of life are all that make sense if there is "no alternative to it [modernity], no logical resolution. Only a logical exacerbation and a catastrophic resolution" (Baudrillard 1983a: 105-6).

One form of political activity attractive to some skeptics is euphoria and carnival (dressing up, comedy, the circus) (Kellner 1989b: chap. 4; Ea- gleton 1983a: 108-9). Inspired by Bakhtin's analysis of the medieval car- nival where the everyday world is turned upside down by farce and play, the skeptics argue this is a healthy response to the post-modern situation (Bakhtin 1973; Todorov 1984: 78-90). The medieval carnival is "free; fall

of laughter, sacrileges, profanations of all things sacred, disparagement and unseemly behavior, familiar contact with everybody and everything"

(Bakhtin quoted in Todorov 1984: 78-80). Sloterdijk offers an excellent example. He argues, and not all skeptical post-modernists would agree, for

an affirmative form of cynicism that he calls "knyicism." This is satirical cynicism inspired by Diogenes. He tells us it has a "positive adversarial, counterstrategy" that seeks "existence in resistance, in laughter, in refusal, in the appeal to the whole of nature and a full life" (1987: 218). It focuses on the politics of the body, pleasure, risk, self-assertion, the individual's right to expect to be happy and to find joy and pleasure in life. Sloterdijk formulates a strategy effective for personal survival, but his solution is ap- propriate only for individuals. The forms of defense he envisions do not constitute a "project," an alternative to modernity; they are more in the line of anarchistic guerilla warfare waged against modernity. The body is "the primary locus of cognition . . . social protest and change" (Adelson 1984: 189). The example of Diogenes, Sloterdijk suggests, encourages us to urinate and masturbate in public. Although he criticizes the confirmed post-modern cynics, his quarrels with them are not really so serious as is evident in his definition of cynicism as enlightened false consciousness. He proposes an alternative to pessimism, a "light-hearted disrespect in pursuit of original task" (1984: 93).

Many skeptics assume that in a post-modern context political activity is necessarily random, unpredictable, and even pathological. These are So- rel's disillusioned optimists who turn to post-modern defeatism and terror out of pure frustration (Sorel 1987: 192-94). Acts of madness and insan- ity take on a new symbolic significance. Terrorism, violence, protest, insur- rection are offered as anti-conventional post-modern forms of nonrepre- sentational political participation, as "deconstructive" alternatives to participation, as efforts to subvert representation and deny legitimacy (Baudrillard 1983a: 20-21, 54). Violence becomes a post-modern prob- lématique, a "discourse and a semiotics. . . , a mode of interpretation . . . , an antitext," a post-modern language that "creates structure out of events, and events out of structure" (Apter 1987: 40-43).

A handful of the skeptical post-modernists are preoccupied with death and fascinated with destruction—preoccupations regarded as making a po- litical statement (Scherpe 1986-87: 98; Baudrillard 1976; Kellner 1989b: 106-8; Wulf 1989). Post-modern fiction is said to "simulate death," to concentrate consciously on rehearsing death, to be the last site in the post- modern world where the living can learn anything about death (McHale 1987: 232). Poetry and art are not timeless expressions of genius, but rather reminders of mortality, disintegration, death (Vattimo 1988: 27). Living under the threat of nuclear catastrophe, a form of collective exter- mination, has led these skeptics to the very brink where everything evapo- rates and disappears. The difference between insanity and fantasy is bridged; "pandemonium and laughter [are] at the core of the igniting ex- plosive mass" (Sloterdijk 1987: xxi).

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only carry out on themselves, a self-destruction" (Scherpe 1986-87: 123, summarizes a half dozen German post-modernists who adopt this perspec- tive). Death, self-inflicted death, suicide, are affirmations of power that conquer rationality (Baudrillard 1976: 221), and these take on special sig- nificance in a post-modern world where powerlessness is the general rule. The absence of any hope for the future requires an anticipation of the end. The will to death becomes a positive attribute "when it is realized that only one strong enough to die can live, it becomes possible to embrace death as grace" (Taylor 1984: 73). Because no philosophical foundations remain for the skeptics, death becomes the only finality, a depository of all that is "great and beautiful" in the cumulative "life experience of past genera- tions." Death is the "source of the few rules that can help us to move about our existence in a non-chaotic and undisorganized way while knowing that we are not headed anywhere" (Vattimo 1982: 25).

For the most extreme skeptics suicide becomes the only authentic polit- ical gesture left, the last and most revolutionary act, the culmination of post-modern resistance. It goes beyond recuperation and cooptation. It alone escapes the control of modernity and the object status that modernity imposes. The post-modern pushes us to transcend fear by "going beyond death," by controlling our own death, by "fantasizing life after death while still undead" (Wolfe 1988: 581).3

This dark side of post-modernism is disturbing when it encounters the challenge of the political and frighteningly explicit when it gains political expression. The skeptics represent a current of desperation and defeatism (Benhabib 1984: 125-26). By opting out of politics they leave power re- lations and formal authority untouched. This engenders a cynical, nihilist, and pessimistic political tone (Vattimo 1988). In their most cheery frame of mind they refuse political participation and celebrate the carnival. Their attraction to death and suicide evokes much the same message however: whatever political scenarios emerge, none is different enough from the status quo to matter to them. Given the history of the twentieth century, that is a powerful and frightening statement.

In considering the consequences of skeptical post-modern political ori- entations for social science the views of the extremist minority preoccupied by death and terrorism can be dealt with rather quickly. These post-mod- ernists have no interest or need for a social science—be it modern or post- modern. The political views of the remaining skeptical post-modernists range from passivity to deliberate frivolity, and although they too may not require any social science at all, some of them are interested in a discursive,

3

Suicide is closely linked to the post-modern appeal in Japan. Resistance within Japanese culture is minimal to begin with, and suicide "represents the capacity for the subject to resist without resisting, to undermine emptiness itself, to preempt death and destruction, or undo the end of history itself (Wolfe 1988: 588).

literary social science. Such a social science would have little of importance to contribute to society. It would not need to play the role of conventional social science at any level. Nor would it be asked to provide theoretical insights in the form of new knowledge. It would not seek to enhance un- derstanding because understanding assumes or promotes meta-narratives. Nor would it need to offer information as a basis for problem solving or policy making. What is a problem for conventional modern social science does not strike the skeptical post-modernists as worrisome. To formulate

policy the skeptics would have to advance a point of view that something

needs to be done and can be accomplished, and this they deny. All that is left for the skeptics is a social science that exhibits a passion for discourse, that serves as a means of self-exploration, self-reflection, and self-expres- sion, but that is passive because it does not move beyond conversation.

2. Affirmative Post-Modernists on Politics: