An und für sich

The second part of my critique of Telos’ theoretical inventions, the first part I posted a while back. Here I try and show how both artificial negativity and the new class are incoherent concepts – and that the examples of organic traditions Telos point to are false. I suggest, briefly (its long enough already and longer in the ‘proper’ version where I go through some more traditions!), that this shows the concept is purely polemical rather than analytic. I firmly apologise for transgressing the limits of acceptable blog post length, but hope someone, somewhere finds this a bit interesting, particularly the idea that the Tories ‘Big Society’ should be a prime example of artificial negativity thus showing the concept of artificial negativity makes no sense.

In a wonderful if hilarious article for the 1989 December issue of Telos, Timothy Luke, one of the primary progenitors of the artificial negativity thesis, writes a delicious article ‘Xmas Ideology: Unwrapping the New Deal and the Cold War under the Christmas Tree’¹, which is replied to directly afterwards by Paul Piccone². In it Luke claims that Christmas films such as It’s A Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, Holiday Inn and White Christmas are an almost perfect example of artificial negativity. Against the crass commercialisation of Christmas, they appear to offer an authentic core of love and human compassion that are unspoilt. In fact, Luke argues, they are merely a way of briefly compensating for the aggressive fragmentation of late capitalism, and actually perpetuating it. The films “generate ideologies of self-gratification and fulfilment as in the cult of Christmas, which rather than being cast as a Christian celebration of Christ’s birth, is instead turned into a fantasy of self-fulfilment and collective solidarity as part of a celebration of materialistic giving (and receiving)”.

Hence:

The Christian rituals of Christmas, then, have been remanufactured by capital and the state during WWII and the Cold War into “Xmas”. Without it, the rituals of life in consumer society might disintegrate even more than they have already, making Xmas an essential aspect of exchange. It mediates the forms of subjectivity in the intimate sphere of caring with corporate agendas of spending and having. Christmas as “Xmas” becomes in film the essential simulation of settled social traditions, family unity, and collective purpose for many modern American Pottersvilles that otherwise lack these qualities.

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In my dissertation I explore at length the various permutations and readings of the “capitalism as religion” or “economics as religion” or “neoliberalism as religion” paradigm in the scholarship of theologians, philosophers and economists. Here I am attempting to produce a philosophy of religion of capitalism and its relation to economics, which I then turn to the neo-Gramscian paradigm of neoliberalism I’ve detailed earlier in the work. The thing is, there is something about this comparison that seems intuitive and clear: I rarely have to explain to people what I am doing in my work, they automatically ‘get’ it. In trying to show this I’m dredging up as much coverage from the press as I can to show the idea is “in the air”

So what I’m looking for dear readers is your news stories or short opinion pieces from the popular press that discuss or allude to the idea that capitalism is a religion, or economics is a religion, or neoliberalism is a religion. I am not looking for books or academic titles on the subject, as I feel I have a good overview and have sifted the wheat from the chaff here. Something else I am not particularly interested in is the “consumerism as religion” trope, which is probably more common than the examples I’m talking about here. Religious leaders commentating on it are interesting, but more interesting are otherwise secular commentators making this connection. I am also looking for articles which simply use religious language – “the gospel of neoliberalism”, “prophets of market doom” and so on. Also practical examples – Alan Greenspan’s crisis of faith, for example, would be fun.

I think I have quite a few good ones of this genre, but with the infinite eyes of the internet I am absolutely positive you out there have great examples of this I have missed. You will, of course, be footnoted with aplomb. Thanks a lot in advance.

I’m just finishing the second bit of my post series on artificial negativity and thought I’d share some particularly funny bits and pieces from Telos I stumbled across. One thing I respect about Telos – its fierce independence.

Issue 4, published in 1969 has this on the title page:

Telos is a philosophical journal definitely outside the mainsteam of American Philosophical thought.

The capitalisation of American Philosophical intrigued me – was this a passing swipe at the APA? Lo and behold on page 206 we find a staff writer (Piccone I imagine) reviewing the APA convention in 1969.

It is generally believed that the “P” in APA stands for “Philosophical”. But if the name is to reflect at all it denotation – something very rare these days – it should stand for “Philanderers”. [the dictionary defines philanderers as] people who make love insincerely. It was quite evident that love of wisdom was a rare passion indeed in this congregation of Professional American Philosophers. Read the rest of this entry »

the late 60s and early 70s saw a series of annual occasions known as Telos conferences, some of which might be thought of as philosophical harbingers of the more recent and far more popular phenomenon known as ‘Wrestlemania’.

This little quotation, as I try and wrap up my reflections on communitarianism, not only made me chuckle, but recalled a number of the debates I have been involved in both online and offline. The well know Telos attitude seems built for our blog age. Inspired by Telos’ founder and guiding spirit Paul Piccone it is a combination of no-bullshit snark, polemical rudeness and occasional shamanic swearing alongside the deployment of sweeping generalisation and only semi-coherent theoretical categories to fence in intellectual opponents for quick dismissal. It is an attitude often coupled in a messy, contradictory, double movement which claims your opponents lack subtly and historical nuance while utilising your own ideal types to slap them about.

This is a move set one can have a grudging distant respect for in a blog like this, supposedly known for people fearing to even leave a comment. But it is a kind of flattening blow resplendent with trash-talking attitude that is like a four leg lock followed by a number of heel whoops. Its a totally Rick Flair (left): it might whip the crowd up, but on close examination, one can see that it is fairly thin and doesn’t even contain a modicum of skill or athleticism. Under real scrutiny, one cannot suspend disbelief that it realistically wins matches even when it topples better opponents. Perhaps then, when the move is done, we shouldn’t be inclined to sell it quite so much. Like with any heel, we might be able to respect some of its theatre, but eventually it becomes predictable and thin and allows the whole game to be dismissed as trivially fake. Our best move is then to break keyfabe and like some form of masked wrestler teaching the tricks of the trade, deconstruct the moves themselves in the hope of defeating the tropes as a whole. They will doubtless continue, but the fans will demand better and believe in it less. It would be transparent.

(At this point a guide to wrestling terminology might be useful. Obviously people have written for Telos (including people who write for this blog) who do not subscribe to their general theoretical orientation. Yet that the journal had a particular agenda and orientation mostly surround Piccone and his central clique is beyond repute and admitted by Piccone himself on several occasions)

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