10/30 – A Rhetoric of the Multitude

Text: A Grammar of the Multitude

Presentation: Derek on Multitude

Housekeeping:

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• Keyword entries & web projects
• The next three weeks
  

A Multitude of Multitudes (Machiavelli, Hobbes, Spinoza, Hardt & Negri): Virno doesn’t have any telos up his sleeve, no ready-made program for the multitude-certainly not coming out “the other side.” It’s been tried before, didn’t turn out so well. Why should a “postmodern revolution” be any different? Anyone who cares for the multitude should first figure out what it is about and what could be expected from it, not derive its mode of being from some revolutionary essence. The ultimate goal of Virno’s inventive inventory is “rescuing political action from its current paralysis.” Empire is trying that too, but a straw fight won’t do — The Multitude Strikes Back… Virno may be onto something when he suggests that Post-Fordism is the communism of capital.” It doesn’t say that there is no more fights in sight, that post-Fordism brought us “communism.” Fights should be expected, but not a war that would allegedly destroy the enemy. A combat rather, meant to strengthen some forces present in capital, and join them with other forces in order to form a new communist ensemble. This is what Virno has been attempting to provide: the description of a combat, a cartography of virtualities made possible by post-Fordism, elements in contemporary life that could eventually be mobilized. The problem is not to destroy capital or Empire — destroy, they say — but bolster one’s own power. What is a body capable of? (16-17)

Konoi Topoi: The transformation with which we must come to terms can be summarized in this way: in today’s world, the “special places” of discourse and of argumentation are perishing and dissolving, while immediate visibility is being gained by the “common places,” or by generic logical-linguistic forms which establish the pattern for all forms of discourse. This means that in order to get a sense of orientation in the world and to protect ourselves from its dangers, we can not rely on those forms of thought, of reasoning, or of discourse which have their niche in one particular context or another. The clan of sports fans, the religious community, the branch of a political party, the workplace: all of these “places” obviously continue to exist, but none of them is sufficiently characterized or characterizing as to be able to offer us a wind rose, or a standard of orientation, a trustworthy compass, a unity of specific customs, of specific ways of saying/ thinking things. Everywhere, and in every situation, we speak/ think in the same way, on the basis of logical-linguistic constructs which are as fundamental as they are broadly general. An ethical-rhetorical topography is disappearing. The “common places” (these inadequate principles of the “life of the mind”) are moving to the forefront: the connection between more and less, the opposition of opposites, the relationship of reciprocity, etc. These “common places,” and these alone, are what exist in terms of offering us a standard of orientation, and thus, some sort of refuge from the direction in which the world is going. (36-37)

The General Intellect and Linguistic-Virtuositic Labor: The speaker alone — unlike the pianist, the dancer or the actor— can do without a script or a score. The speaker’s virtuosity is twofold: not only does it not produce an end product which is distinguishable from performance, but it does not even leave behind an end product which could be actualized by means of performance. In fact, the act of parole makes use only of the potentiality of language, or better yet, of the generic faculty of language: not of a pre-established text in detail. The virtuosity of the speaker is the prototype and apex of all other forms of virtuosity, precisely because it includes within itself the potential/act relationship, whereas ordinary or derivative virtuosity, instead, presupposes a determined act (as in Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations, let us say), which can be relived over and over again. But I will return to this point later. It is enough to say, for now, that contemporary production becomes “virtuosic” (and thus political) precisely because it includes within itself linguistic experience as such. If this is so, the matrix of post-Fordism can be found in the industrial sectors in which there is “production of communication by means of communication”; hence, in the culture industry. (56)

Publicness Without a Public Sphere: When the fundamental abilities of the human being (thought, language, self-reflection, the capacity for learning) come to the forefront, the situation can take on a disquieting and oppressive appearance; or it can even give way to a non-public public sphere, to a non-governmental public sphere, far from the myths and rituals of sovereignty. My thesis, in extremely concise form, is this: if the publicness of the intellect does not yield to the realm of a public sphere, of a political space in which the many can tend to common affairs, then it produces terrifying effects. A publicness without a public sphere: here is the negative side — the evil, if you wish — of the experience of the multitude. (40)

Non-Servile Virtuosity: How is non-servile virtuosity possible? How do we move, hypothetically, from a servile virtuosity to a “republican” virtuosity (understanding “republic of the multitude” to mean a sphere of common affairs which is no longer state-run)? How do we conceive, in principle, of political action based on the general intellect? We must tread this terrain carefully. All we can do is to point to the logical form of something that is still lacking a solid empirical experience. I am proposing two key-terms: civil disobedience and exit. (69)

The Communism of Capital: The metamorphosis of social systems in the West, during the 1980’s and 1990’s, can be synthesized in a more pertinent manner with the expression: communism of capital. This means that the capitalistic initiative orchestrates for its own benefit precisely those material and cultural conditions which would guarantee a calm version of realism for the potential communist. Think of the objectives which constitute the fulcrum of such a prospect: the abolition of that intolerable scandal, the persistence of wage labor; the extinction of the State as an industry of coercion and as a “monopoly of political decision-making”; the valorization of all that which renders the life of an individual unique. Yet, in the course of the last twenty years, an insidious and terrible interpretation of these same objectives has been put forth. First of all, the irreversible shrinking of socially necessary labor time has taken place, with an increase in labor time for those on the “inside” and the alienation of those on the “outside.” Even when squeezed by temporary workers, the entity of employed workers presents itself as “overpopulation” or as the “industrial reserve army.” Secondly, the radical crisis, or actually the desegregation, of the national States expresses itself as the miniature reproduction, like a Chinese box, of the form-of-State. Thirdly. after the fall of a “universal equivalent” capable of operating effectively, we witness a fetishistic cult of differences — except that these differences, claiming a substantial surreptitious foundation. give rise to all sorts of domineering and discriminating hierarchies.

~ by inferentialkid on November 20, 2008.