Lovers Need Lawyers

“Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains!”—Rousseau, The Social Contract 1762
In the beginning, there was the Social Contract: a freely constructed community of Individuals who willingly give up their natural Freedom and voluntarily consent to the community's Laws if—and only if—it can sufficiently protect their Life, Liberty and Property/Pursuit of Happiness.

This is the foundation of Liberalism (the type of System we currently live under), which was discovered through a hypothetical thought experiment called the State of Nature: a device used by early Enlightenment Philosophers to imagine how Man would live if stripped of all seemingly conventional attachments to Country, Religion, and Family and existed only as the isolated, separate beings that the unity of our individual Bodies suggests.

The point of this experiment was to foment a conspiracy to undermine the legitimacy of all previously existing political regimes by exposing their Rulers’ supposed claim to serve the Common Good as nothing more than a means to exploit the Ruled for their own selfish, greedy ends.

(The formula goes something like this: We are all Selves + the Self is naturally selfish = its two strongest motivating passions are Self-Preservation and Self-Interest)

The goal was to give an equal Right to selfishness to the Ruled; to allow them to be the sole judge of their own Interests; to have the Right to freely choose Rulers who would best serve those ends. And, once the old legitimacies were sufficiently disposed of (i.e. Revolution), then the Rulers and the Ruled could consciously—using their Reason—construct a new Contract that would equally protect the Interests of both parties.

But, if one constructs a Society founded on our basest, most animal instincts will it not eventually reduce us back to them; if all these Social relations are shown to be merely conventional, with no natural basis, how do you prevent that line of thought from eventually extending to every form of relationship? And now, “History” has seemingly led us full circle back to the once fabled State of Nature—not as an experimental hypothesis as those who first proposed it, but, instead, as an ever increasingly realized reality.

The Youth today are now well provided for by our Country—and continue to demand more and more social security from their government—yet there is really little to no reciprocal civic engagement required of them; they are free to choose which, if any, Religion they wish to practice; and now, even sexual involvements have been completely liberated as well—no longer necessarily leading to commitment or Family life—completing the triumvirate of conventional attachments: Country, Religion and Family. We now exist as the naked Individuals who once “inhabited” the State of Nature—but with one little difference: we still inhabit Society and like to think of our-Selves as “civilized” creatures, but, as the State of Nature originally showed, the result of disconnected Individuals all asserting equal Rights to a finite amount of Nature’s bounty is really…a War of All Against All.

Despite the radicalism of the Philosophers that first proposed this new scheme for Society, they never imagined the break down of the Family as well, and had relied on this semi-natural, or at least unavoidable, necessity to provide some sort of bridge to connect the Individual and Society. The Individual would take a material stake in his community, in order to provide the best possible atmosphere in which to raise his Family—a way to ensure the Common Good that flows naturally out of our Self-Interest. Also, the concern for the safety of one’s Family is a powerful reason for loyalty to the State that protects them.

Rousseau, however, knew better and could see where the rising tide of Egalitarianism and Individualism (which he agreed with in principle) caused by this new philosophy would eventually lead. This inspired him to devote his entire career to encouraging passionate, Romantic Love to attempt to create a bond between Men and Women that was greater than mere Bourgeois calculation of Self-Interest. But, based on this sketch by Chappelle, it would appear that his great effort has failed and our view of our-Self as simply freely contracting Individuals has now penetrated our every relation—officially destroying any semblance of a natural basis that once connected Human Beings to one another.

Rousseau tried to discover/create Molecules (Family), as opposed to simply Atoms (Individuals), as the building blocks of Society because then Society’s parts would already be moved by different motivations than mere Self-Interest—which then could hopefully be extended to Others. People in love constitute a visible proof that Man can act for other reasons besides the Economic/Utilitarian motivations that dominate Modern Theory. In contrast, each partner in the Molecule is instead motivated by forces found in true attachment and concern for Others, whereas a Society constructed out of radically separate Atoms creates no shared basis of concern—only diffidence or, even worse, war.

We have now turned the most intimate connection that can unite two Human Beings into just another contest in the War of All Against All—the final development of founding all human relations on mere contracts; simply another contest for the “Will to Power” to assert itself. The only possible peace is to be found in an artificial construct: the Business Contract—which we enter into for as long as it is convenient and serves our Interests; a union of two equally Self-ish Individuals who hopefully each have a good lawyer to settle the statistically inevitable Divorce.

And you know what the silliest part of all this is: a concurrent attempt by the same Individuals to turn the actual Social Contract—the societal one—into a more compassionate/caring relationship—i.e. some sort of Socialist type structure that could help to reduce our selfishness—while at the same time reducing real Human connection to an abstraction, with no natural basis. In the end, it appears that we all love our Rights, but hate their consequences. We want to be respected as an Individual, but also want to have real human connections.

And, what we are creating instead are a bunch of Social Solitaries and Isolated Individuals—all with their “own little separate systems”—who have no alternative to collapsing into their Self because everything else has lost its foundation. There is no longer any connection—natural or artificial—to make us care for anyone, except for number one; to draw our attention outward and give us a reason to care about a Community or Society; to not just use one another simply for bodily pleasure…

“I don’t know about you, but I’m still horny.”

Let's Go Bowling

Where does one even begin with a critique of this commercial?

—The Hollywood, stylized/hip, quick-cut interview technique; the overly Self-conscious utilization of Marketing Buzz-words; the seemingly un-Self-conscious exploitation of high philosophic concepts; or perhaps just the all around insulting, simple-mindedness to its approach to marketing its product.

Most of these are pretty much self-explanatory (and I have already covered them before: Quick-cuts, Buzz-words, Simple-mindedness) and I think I will just limit myself to exploring the existential fire this company is playing with in its pseudo-philosophic—and, not to mention, highly Ego-flattering—lexicon for this Marketing Campaign.

Let’ start with the first—and also the most egregious—instance in this commercial: “We’re not just machines that pump stuff out.” Of course our notion of the so-called “Dignity of Man” automatically makes us think of this as a no brainer—and also our commonsense, subjective experience of everyday life—but, in reality (in the work of our most highly educated Physicists and Biologists), this still remains a highly contentious scientific and philosophic conundrum. (Great article about it here) Our human bodies are made of the same substance as every other “body” in the natural world, and so much of their function is on an unconscious level that it is quite problematic to so boldly assert that “we’re not just machines.”

After Newton’s new brand of Science and Physics asserted that the world was just one big deterministic machine, all of philosophy had to follow suit. Our bodies became just another “body in motion” that wished to preserve that motion, i.e. Self-Preservation—the foundation of Modern Political Philosophy. This made the possibility of true “Freedom” quite problematic, despite Philosophy at the same time also declaring that we are all “Free and Equal.”

This lead Rousseau to assert that our Freedom can only be based on a defiance of our Nature, or a perfection of cultivated Virtue through Art and Education (or to be creative; to make something out of nothing; to be The Creator). Only when we rebel against our Animal/Deterministic Nature—Self-Interest, Self-Preservation—do we truly commit a “Free” action, which, for him, has its highest expression in a life-long, freely committed Marriage. Although Nature directs Man to Woman in the act of procreation and perpetuation of the species, there is—again, for him—no natural basis for this “Relationship.” But this initial act of Freedom sets the stage for the possibility of true Moral Choice and Human Dignity because it is an action in defiance of the Deterministic World-Machine.

These ideas were then taken up by Immanuel Kant, in his body of works known as the Three Critiques. In them, he tried to set limits to the possibility of Reason to fully penetrate the Human Condition, and created a new realm higher than Science that could account for Man’s Freedom, or Autonomy—his capacity for Free, Moral Choice, and its accompanying Dignity. But this did not truly solve the problem, as much as just place it on the shelf—it simply assumed it exists and then moved on to easier solvable dilemmas.

There is a lot more to this history that followed Kant’s “solution”—involving the Unconscious, and all kinds of other highly problematic elements—but I will just leave it there for now and move on to the next set of thorny philosophic ideas alluded to in this commercial.

At the end, the gentleman says, “It’s about a sense of community. It’s about a sense of being part of something greater than one-Self”—which is perhaps the issue for Modern Man.

If we are all Individuals, whose main motivating factors are Self-Interest and Self-Preservation, how do you make us truly care for an-Other? Now that all the old bonds—Country, Religion and Family—had been shown to be only false convention and myth by the Enlightenment, how do we now create any sort of binding, non-conditional relationship between any two separate, “free” Individuals? How can there be a Common Good if everyone is, first and fore-most, concerned with their own Private Good?

Pretty much ever since this idea was postulated, there has been a backlash against it. Our Founding Fathers weren’t nearly as doctrinaire as the European Enlightenment, and did not work nearly as hard at dispelling the “prejudices” (opinions) of the People, and left much of the old social apparatus in tact—which is what the “Real Americans” still believe in. But, for all us Fake Americans, this social network has been on a steady decline for at least the last 50 years or so and has been documented by Political Scientists like Robert Putnam in his book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Yet, we still yearn for some sort of connection—for a “Human Network” and “the power of collaboration.”

And Marketers are well aware of that. The idea that shared Consumer Tastes can be equated with “Community” is a highly pervasive one in the industry and Brands that successfully pull this off are constantly used as Case Studies to be emulated. But there is a big difference between Communities that connect us and bind us to a larger vision of society and our role as citizens in it, and ones based on the exploitation of desire in order to maximize profit.

Capitalizing on this superficial, mutual fandom may be an extremely useful technique to sell products, but there is a very deep reason that these techniques are so successful: it helps to fill a hole in our soul that has been created by a false vision of Man by Modern Philosophy. The Commercial Persuasion Industry plays a very big role in the Material success and comfort that we are able to enjoy, but, if this is to be our only metric for quality of life in America, then all we are ever going to have here is the “Pursuit of Happiness,” and never its attainment.


For more on the exploitation by Marketers of the “Tension of Modernity”—the need to feel like an Individual, but also to be part of something greater than one-Self—check out the very excellent book, Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are, by Rob Walker.

Waking Up From the American Dream

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Anand Giridharadas
www.thedailyshow.com
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What is the “American Dream”?

It is the possibility of Social Mobility; of kids living a better (materially) life than their parents did. It is the opportunity to “pull yourself up by your boot straps;” to be a “Self-made Man” (or Woman, now). It is about entrepreneurship and taking chances and “making something of yourself.” It is about being a strong-willed Individual, who doesn’t care what the nay-sayers think; about being a “Rugged Individualist.”

In his brilliant account of our country, Democracy in America, Tocqueville’s favorite word for describing our citizens was “restive”: unable to keep still or silent and becoming increasingly difficult to control, especially because of impatience, dissatisfaction, or boredom.

Basically, we are all workaholics, obsessed with the idea and the possibilities of growth—both personal and societal. There is always something else wrong that can be improved upon; that can be done more efficiently or more intelligently. It doesn’t necessarily matter to us how our fore-fathers did things—especially if it is a material, scientific issue—which causes in us a lack of reverence for more traditional, i.e. Culturally-based, ways of living that could potentially ground our ambitions and restivity. For us, Reason is an instrument through which we can look out at the world, judge what is wrong, and use it to improve upon it.

This idea is now being exported to the rest of the world and is becoming a very destructive force in these still more traditional cultural settings. Most of the time this gets disparaged by calling it “Cultural Imperialism” because it so disrespectful to these old Cultures’ Values—and who is the West to say we’re right, right? But that is painting the situation with a very broad brush and the reality is a little more nuanced than that.

As Anand Giridharadas shows in his new book, India Calling: An Intimate Portrait of a Nation's Remaking, sometimes it can be a good thing for old Values to fall away and new ones to take their place. In India, one of the most conspicuous elements of the new economic forces that are taking shape there is the dissolution of the once determinate Caste System that formerly kept India immutably stratified in a culturally based social hierarchy. But now, a much more meritocratic system of fluid social mobility is rising to take its place: aka, The American Dream. (Sidenote: sometimes the loss of old values can be a very, very bad thing as well.)

These developments made the writer, Giridharadas, decide only one generation after his family’s emigration to America, to renounce the opportunities here and return to his homeland because India has now become the new “Land of Opportunity”. The Caste System had ordered society for thousands of years—at times more or less rigidly: more so since the imposition of British rule in the 1700’s—but is now coming to be seen as an antiquated relic of a superstitious, myth-based past.

The country is importing all sorts of jobs from factories to IT to call centers for companies from all over the world—NBC has even made a sitcom about it: Outsourced. They are becoming a major force in the world and are asserting themselves upon the world stage as a nation to be “taken seriously.” The Economy of India is now the eleventh largest in the world by GDP and the fourth largest by purchasing power parity. And Economists are predicting that by 2020 India will be among the leading economies in the world. (They also, by the way, now hold $41 billion in US debt.)

It will be interesting to see how this plays out—as the rest of the world plays catch up to America and the rest of the West, in the material realm. They are kind of experiencing our history—only in fast forward—but with one little exception, and possible advantage. This is what Giridharadas spoke of at the end: the “challenge of culture and spirit.” In America, our Culture is dissipating—the foundations are eroding and the dividedness of Western History between our Christian heritage and our “Enlightened” experiment are at war with one another and we are in the midst of a great Identity Crisis. The one side is receding further and further backward under the cover and comfort of fundamentalist Self-assurance, as the other side is trying its hardest to pull us in the opposite—just as dangerous and destructive—direction toward ungrounded, contentless “Freedom.”

We no longer know who we are, nor do we have an aim or purpose that is guiding us into the unknown future. Obama tried to inspire us with his so-called “Sputnik Moment” he spoke of in his State of the Union address, but the goals he set were low, paltry and all-around inadequate for the direness of the situation. Whether or not these rising countries are truly more united than us, or are just superficially so—united by a common “enemy” or competitor—will remain to be seen, but, if we are going to remain united, we need something much higher and loftier than high-speed rail and nationwide wireless internet access to reinvigorate our floundering and disunited nation.

Can America create a new national Culture out of the vast range of diversity and interests that are now contained within in it; is it even still possible to satisfy this diverse of a People at the Federal level, or must our government shrink to meet the needs of an increasingly balkanized Nation?

Our Time Honored Tradition of Cannibalism

For the next installment in my ongoing series in the exploration into the idea of “Culture,” I’m going to, instead, try to explore what Culture is not; or at least what inhibits Culture and its tangible manifestations: Art, Values, Traditions, etc. Sometimes a negative definition can be much more useful than a positive one because it is less definite—less constrictive and determinate; it can allow for a greater range of interpretations and positive creations to flow from it by not limiting its manifestations to a finite scale.

A good example of this would be the Bill of Rights—all of the Rights enumerated within it are defined in the negative:

-Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of Religion
-The Right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed
-The Right of the People…against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated
-Etc...

The absence of an explicitly expressed meaning of these laws allows for a great range of interpretation—which can be a good and bad thing—but, in fact, they do well to achieve exactly what they were conceived to do: provide for a broad basis for interpretation and enactment of what Freedom means to each unique Individual. They declare: You have the Right to not be forced, in this case by the Government, to do some something that is against your Conscience, but, in turn, also have the positive Right to create your world however you see fit (well as long as it doesn’t violate an-Other’s Right to do the same).

Sorry that was a bit of long tangent, but I think one that illustrates my initial point pretty well.

So, what is Culture not; or what, perhaps, inhibits the ability of Culture to flourish and to be a positive, active force in the world? Everyone today says that they respect Culture and thinks that it is an important aspect of the Human Condition; and just about everyone today also agrees that Human Values are relative to an Individual’s Culture—that they are Socially and Historically constructed—and that what is important is not so much the content of the Culture, but merely the fact that an Individual participates in one—which is what accounts for the beautiful diversity of the world.

The other day, I went to my local “Progressive/Alternative” Art museum to experience some “Culture.” They were having a presentation of an Afro-Brazilian/Samba-Reggae drumming group, called Batala Percussion Band—a 90% White, 100% Women troupe from DC. They played a very lively, all percussive style of music meant to make you move; to get up and dance; to shake off the shackles of Self-consciousness and really live!

A sizable group of about 75-100 people turned out for the event—mostly White, all Middle-Upper Middle Class, and if not White, at least fully immersed in the average American Life-style. The drumming-group came out to—what I can only generously call—a lukewarm round of applause from the gathered mass, after the group’s attractive, mid-20’s, White, female conductor’s introduction and explanation about what we were about to “experience.”

Before the group began playing we were warned by the conductor that the group’s drums could get “pretty loud,” and that we should all take our fingers and push that little flap on the outside of our ears in, so as not to damage our delicate eardrums. Maybe I just think about things too much—which, come to think of it, is undeniable—but this seemingly innocuous instruction sent my mind reeling down a path from which I could not divert throughout the rest of the performance.

What happens when one pushes the flaps into their ears? It dampens the sound; it creates a barrier between the receiver and the experience; it attenuates the sensual energy of the performance. And I realized that the “experience”—the occurrence, event or happening; the adventure, exploit or escapade—was not the point of the presentation to which I was attempting to experience. The point of the presentation was “Recognition”—in the political sense of the word: as in “Recognition of Rights.”

As I peered around the room, I noticed an evidently apparent lack of engagement from the audience. Despite the high level of energy emanating from our entertainers, there was a conspicuous absence of reciprocal transference from the audience back to the stage. Most people stood quite still, projecting an unaffected continence in both Body and Soul. After each song, there was an unenthusiastic, perfunctory round of applause, but little truly appreciative reaction.

I began wondering what accounted for this tepid participation. Why was the audience just not “feeling it”? What was the source of this evident disconnect between what this music should be invoking in the listener and what I was so apparently witnessing?

I believe the reason for this disconnect is that once you take a piece of “Culture,” remove it from its native context and so evidently present it as something that we should Self-consciously respect, the work is in turn robbed of all psychic and emotional power. Once you take it and place it in a museum it becomes dead—an interesting artifact, maybe, but it is ultimately stripped of its ability to “move” us. That is the problem with Tradition and Culture: once it becomes recognized simply as such, it no longer contains the power to inspire or create meaning for us. And even more so if the Cultural Artifact has no tangible connection to our History or Self.

This is the fundamental problem of the so-called “Culture Movement.” They are so caught up in feelings of Liberal Guilt and trying to right the wrongs of History that they have lost objectivity and cannot even see how inept their attempts to achieve this have become. The Recognition of Rights of formerly oppressed Minorities is the only goal—it doesn’t matter if they render the Cultural expressions meaningless, as long it is granted an equal presence in the public sphere; as long it makes you realize that your Culture is not special—instead just one of a plurality of Cultures all of equal worth.

And it’s not like I don’t get it, that I don’t understand the source of this Liberal Guilt or “feel bad” for what my “Culture” has done with its preeminence as a world power. Yes, White People have done some pretty awful things to People of Color for a very long time, all over the globe. I just think that Liberal Guilt is a useless, debilitating emotion: there is nothing you can do to change the Past, there is however plenty of things we can do to create a better Future—for Everyone. And as I have tried to get across in this post, the tactic that we currently employ to achieve this, I think, does just as much harm as it does good.

By forcing people to indiscriminately accept everything and “recognize” the fact that the world is made up of many, many different Cultures—all, by the way, with extremely conflicting concepts of the Good—will only result in the eventual inability to have any Cultures. What will happen when the rest of the world discovers Post-Modernity’s favorite little secret: that all basis for preference is nothing more than an accident of where you happened to be placed during the Lottery of Birth, which has no inherent value to it? That is what we—college educated Americans—now believe (unlike those backwards “Real Americans”).

Do we think that we are special—at some greater level of understanding of the Human Condition? Why is it not ok for those ignorant, prejudiced (as in based on opinion, not evidence) “Real Americans” to believe in their Culture, but it is for every other one? And, more importantly, I wonder if are we ever planning on eventually sharing that destructive little insight with all those foreign Cultures we now so valiantly try to protect?

Americans Abroad (Free-style)

“To thine own Self be true...”
—Shakespeare: Hamlet

You should make amends with you,
If only for better health.
But if you really want to live,
Why not try, and make yourself?
—Incubus: Make Yourself

What does it mean to be an “Authentic Self;” or to be Authentic or true to one-Self? Throughout all of Human History there seems to have been a moral imperative to “know thyself,” but in Modernity this need took an odd turn. And now today, a strange mixture of anti-Capitalistic ire and obsession with a Psychological need for “well-being” has seemed to confuse the issue to the point that we no longer know exactly what we mean by this, nor how to go about achieving it.

This strictly Modern problem can be traced back to Rousseau’s radical distinction between Nature and Society. For him, Man in the State of Nature couldn’t help but be him-Self and live in accord with the dictates of Nature, and his specific nature, because there was no alternative; there were no “Alienating” structures that divided his loyalty and impressed conflicting beliefs or duties upon him. He lived as a unified whole and his Amour de Soi—Love of Self—was pure and uncontaminated by the corrupting influence of Ego, Vanity, Ambition and Jealousy that are unavoidable by-products of Society and social interaction.

But today, we have two, seemingly contradictory, notions of what it means to be “Authentic.”

There is the idea of being Authentic to one’s History and Culture—such as the Peruvian family in the 30 Rock clip that has been hat-makers for the last 2,000 years. The value placed upon this brand of Authenticity is its ability to resist the corrupting influence of money and status-seeking and vulgarity: hallmarks of the well-worn critique of Capitalism. We marvel at its longevity and respect for ancient Tradition—and the attendant “care” that is put into the act of creation. The point of production is not simply maximization of profit at any cost and there is a connection to the necessity out of which it was born; therefore not simply “a groundless commitment made in the void.”

But then there is also the complete opposite sense in which we use the word “Authentic”: being Authentic to one-Self. Supposedly, we are all born as an "Authentic Self," but become “Alienated” by the demands of Society/Social Duty and the Values that we are indoctrinated with beginning at birth. To be Authentic, to be a true “Individual,” we need to stay faithful to our nature—our individual, unique, special, one of a kind nature that is all our own—even if it is completely incompatible with the Culture we happen to be “thrown” into during the lottery of birth.

So which do we mean when we say that we value “Authenticity” or “being Authentic”? The goal of both types is an escape or solution to “Alienation”: estrangement from something that is “real.” In the first type, it is an Alienation from an Individual’s Cultural History and Man’s former connection to a more Authentic form of Labor, i.e. Craftsmanship; the second, an Alienation from one’s true Self. One is external, the other internal; but the goal of the latter is, in essence, about Freedom from the former.

What Modern Man ultimately desires is Freedom—especially its most extreme form: the Freedom to do or to be whatever you want; to make yourself. But is not a 2,000 year old family of hat-makers the complete opposite of that proposition? The awe-inspired reverence Liz Lemon has for this family is completely inimical to the goal of Modern Man. I bet somewhere along the line in the last 2,000 years there was at least one son who did not want to be a hat-maker, instead was really passionate about making shoes. But he was probably forced by his father to be one—in order to keep the family Tradition alive. What do you think Ms. Lemon would have to say if she knew that?

The cause of this reverence for these uncorrupted Cultures is to protect developing countries from what are seen as the ravages of the Capitalist System—so indepthly chronicled by the writings of Marx—but is it not, in essence, denying the citizens of these countries the very goal that people like Liz Lemon also hold in such high esteem—namely, Freedom? I can completely sympathize with the impulse, but we must be clear what exactly we are talking about if we are ever going to be able to accurately and honestly talk about a concept as illusive as “Authenticity.” Maybe the real conversation we should be having is: what does “Freedom” mean?