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Inside Modern Movement: the anatomy of the continuity Revolutionary Communist Party

August 4, 2010 by necessaryagitation

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Photo from the only Modern Movement demo, with Plane Stupid infiltrator in the background!

The following post is composed of reflections and recollections based on my experience inside the short lived campaigning group, Modern Movement, now defunct since 2009. I try to avoid drawing on the immense ammunition my involvement in this group has provided for possible character assassination or ridicule and try to stay at the level of observations fit for the purpose of what it tells us, more generally, about the way the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) and its continuity institutions work—an anatomy, that is, of a group straddling the fine line between a committed cadre and a middle class cult.

But first, before these insights, a few good words about my former colleagues. Something which can be said of the new generation of recruits clustered around the Institute of Ideas is that they are on the whole more personable and open minded than the old RCP stalwarts. Indeed, the clique that originally banded together to form the majority of Modern Movement’s members were drawn to do so on the basis of their dissatisfaction with the present line of the continuity RCP’s leading lights—Frank Furedi, Claire Fox, etc.—and a desire for a space to stake out their own unique positions on the new issues thrown up by the 2008/09 financial crisis. From the start they  evinced a solid work ethic and seriousness, which is not to be underestimated. Meetings were kept on time, minutes taken, and names and slogans brainstormed efficiently.

Amongst the leaders of Modern Movement (henceforth MM) there was an unshakeable sense that our initial mission to support the construction of a third runway at Heathrow airport was an important and timely intervention that needed to be made. I might add that I also, and continue to support the general aim of MM to defend cheap flights. Yet for all the formal agreement on ends, the justifications of why we were supporting these aims were exposed to very little theoretical reflection. My sense was that it was supposed that we were all meant to know that flights meant progress, and that was justification enough for the endeavour. Ultimately this lack of theoretical consolidation, alongside the more banal procedural disputes and personality conflicts, led to the group’s eventual dissolution.

It all moved very quickly, and despite the fact that the group was supposed to be autonomous from the Institute of Ideas—it was never merely a front group—those members closest to the IoI quickly assumed leadership positions. These positions were never put to any form of democratic deliberation; moreover, democracy was always considered something of an embarrassing liberal formality, in contrast to the vague ‘Leninism’ the self appointed leaders espoused.

There were numerous examples of this ethos at work. From the highly formalistic meeting at Rob Killick’s workplace, to the insistence that only the ‘leadership’ speak to the media at the public demonstration, to even weirder secret invites to Capital reading groups. Those closest to the IoI seemed to be actively attempting to replicate the attitudes and approach of the RCP as closely as possible. There was a simmering sense of hostility and unease that permeated every meeting; a sense that screws were being turned and covert factions formed—and this before the ideological divisions surfaced. A pre-demonstration meeting came very close to a punch up, as one active group member insisted on a democratic decision as to whether to bring a loudspeaker, whereas the leadership clique seemed to consider the idea that a democratic decision should be made as entirely inappropriate. James Heartfield, who was standing nearby at the time, found this all very amusing, quipping that it ‘only takes two Trots to form a faction’!

Uncomradely behaviour is one thing; ideological infighting is another. One member of the group submitted a comment piece to the Guardian timed to be published on the same day as the demonstration. The text was passed through the leadership clique and to the surprise of the left leaning member all references to MM’s support for airline workers were systematically stripped away, leaving only something that read like a carte blanche endorsement of the likes of RyanAir. Thus, the schisms began to seriously open up.

In the short space of a month or two a left and a right faction of MM started to appear. Broadly speaking the rightwing leadership clique were closest to the IoI, most reverent for the traditions of the RCP, dismissive of democracy, and pro-capitalist. Conversely, the leftwing faction were more insistent on marking a break from the old formulas of the RCP, operating in a democratic fashion and taking an openly anti-capitalist line. These differences came to ahead in the build up to the G20.

MM planned to make two interventions timed to coincide with the G20. Firstly, by having a physical presence during the protests; and secondly, by organising a series of meetings to flyer at the events. In the planning process for the meetings, I came into my first contact with personality cultism. It is a curious phenomenon; one that leaves you feeling both bewildered and slightly pitiful for those under its spell. Things exploded when one member of the left was charged with organizing a meeting and Claire Fox was suggested as a speaker. The member rejected the suggestion and wanting to bring in someone from the ‘outside’. All hell broke loose. Within seconds there was shouting, screaming and almost tears. The idea that someone would not want to bring in Fox or Furedi was deemed to be highly political suspect and almost an insult to the rightwing members in itself.

The bust up probably marked the beginning of the end for this short-lived organization. On the email lists, relations between the left and the right further deteriorated. Members of the right started to flake away, leaving the rightist leadership clique increasingly isolated. And then, suddenly, they just quit. With the scales having tilted decidedly in favour of the left the democratic decision to take an anti-capitalist message to the G20 was too much for the leadership to stomach. They had made it clear from the start that only ‘loons’ go around calling themselves Marxists or anti-capitalists nowadays. In private one had admitted to being a secret, ‘right wing Marxist’ and described the chapter on the working day in Marx’s Capital as the worst thing Marx ever wrote.

In these dying debates it transpired that members of the leadership clique had been circulating our communications to Claire Fox. It was likely to be also on her advice that once MM moved to the left, and thus outside the parameters of IoI discourse, it would no longer benefit the future careers of those people to remain in the organization.

And so in a microcosm there you have a demonstration of the kind of shenanigans favoured by the post RCP. Secrecy, an aggressive ‘Leninism’ based on no respect for democracy, a tight control over ‘the message’, often at odds with the real aims. It could be added that the IoI itself reflects all these tendencies. Essentially a fringe political party in all but name, but lacking even the faintest trace of internal democracy, debate over fundamental principles or tolerance of dissent from Frank Furedi’s ideology. Evasiveness over core ideology is even promoted amongst new recruits; and as such, for all the endless show debates put on by the organization, there is next to no theoretical exposition or discussion of their central beliefs. The ‘line’ spread both inside and outside is that there is ‘no line’ and, as O’Brien tells Winston in Orwell’s 1984, 2 + 2 does equal 5.

Posted in anti-capitalism, political commentary | Tagged , , , , , , | 10 Comments »

Routemaster right vs. bendy bus left?

July 9, 2010 by necessaryagitation

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The new Routemaster design: a rightwing bus?

Over the past couple of London mayoral contests why has the issue of the London Routemaster bus taken on a weirdly strange prominence? In the absence of any underlying differences between Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson’s politics or priorities a semblance of political antagonism has been pried out of the debate over the old Routemaster design versus the bendy buses. One design is positioned as representing the left, and one design that of the right. It represents what we could see as a contest between a decision procedure pitting idealistic principle against hard nosed utilitarianism. On the one hand, emotive and inclusive principles are forwarded on a social justice basis for replacing the Routemaster buses—one injury jumping on and off is too many, they are not accessible to disabled people, and so on. On the other hand, the utilitarian argument accepts that occasional (even if rare) injuries are the price one has to pay for efficient transport and that the interests of the majority are overridden by pressing for universal, if seldom necessary, demands for access to all buses by the disabled population.

Yet there is no obvious class angle here, and so I would question whether there is any left-right distinction to talk of in the debate. Even given the success of a global communist revolution I think the questions surrounding utilitarianism would remain: its exact limits and remit. What is dangerous here, and why I think the left is currently in retreat everywhere against a wave of populist backlash against ‘political correctness gone mad!’, is the abandonment of basic utilitarian arguments to the right.

The same problem is iterated in the climate change debate. On the left climate change is presented as an all-or-nothing battle for survival, with advocates of the do nothing camp placed in the guilty company of the likes of Sarah Palin and the BNP. But surely the question of whether to cut carbon is, like the Routemaster bus, one of a utiltarian calculation. Since it is highly unlikely that class forces will be mobilised one way or the other on the question (since the source of the problem is not, at root, socially antagonistic) it is thus for policy makers a utilitarian issue. That is, weighing up costs and benefits and making a decision beneficial to the majority.

Recently, I have been reading Bjorn Lomborg’s book ‘Cool It’ about climate change. He makes a convincing argument that measures at adaptation would be more cost effective and beneficial than carbon reduction. Indeed, he even raises the point that in many way warming could be beneficial to a great number of people on this earth. I have not read all of the book yet, but what looks likely to be a weakness from a leftwing perspective is the lack of any incorporation of class analysis. We hear a lot about global poverty and absolute conditions of immiseration, but very little about the future standards of living and political strength of the growing industrial working classes in China and India.

There is a similar weakness of leftwing critics of parochical ‘do nothing’ advocates in the West. They claim that this position affirms Western privilege and that Marxist advocates of it have renounced their internationalist credentials. And yet, again what seems to be lacking is any gesture towards a utilitarian reasoning. What may have negative effects for rural dwellers in Africa, may, through the attenuated development of the productive forces in China and India, have positive effects for the growing urban working class and their political prospects there. Of course, this is to grossly simplify the argument, but I hope you get the picture.

The danger is that climate change apocalypticism comes to be the global left’s bendy bus. Something neither representing the interests of the global working class, nor matching up to any reasoned utilitarian calculation of the majority’s interests.

Posted in political commentary | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment »

Fanaticism, political religion and Savonarola

July 3, 2010 by necessaryagitation

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On the uses of fanaticism

Alberto Toscano’s excellent new book, Fanaticism, explores the relationship between the pre-modern, millenarian impulse with the modern political movements following from the French revolution. His central thesis seems to be that the charge of fanaticism is an ahistorical trope leveled across the ages to deligitimize and pathologically psychologise those pursuing radical emancipatory and egalitarian political projects. With the return of the political religion thesis of late in response to overblown threat of political Islam, thinkers like John Gray have carved out media niches regurgitating the Cold War approach of comparing communism, fascism, Islamism, or whatever, to one another and drawing the conclusion that they are all united in their unrealistic hubris based on a millenarian religious impulse.

Ultimately, what this all seems to come down to is an argument that positions pluralistic, liberal capitalism as the unassailable correct line, with advocates of every other position treated as merely flip sides of an infinitely faced coin. In this context liberals’ demonisation of religious political movements cannot be taken innocently as broadly coterminous with the Marxist critique of religion. For what they are opposed to is not just the religious content, but rather all attempts to disjoint the status quo.

Thus revisionist historiography nowadays has to not just rewrite such movements as Bolshevism as an unmitigated evil, but all political movements whatsoever that divert from the linear  narrative of Enlightenment progress to democratic capitalism. Toscano particularly focuses on the story of Thomas Muntzer—Martin Luther’s radical rival during the peasant revolt—but it seems to me that an even more ambiguous and therefore intriguing figure to examine would be Muntzer’s Italian, Catholic contemporary Girolamo Savonarola.

In the recently released computer game, Assassin’s Creed II, Savonarola is portrayed as a totalitarian demagogue demanding absolute obedience to his fundamentalist line.

There is, of course, an element of truth to the game’s portrayal of Savonarola as a fanatic, and one who implemented many socially illiberal edicts. (Although pandering to the video game consumer demographic his ban on sodomy is not given as a rationale for the necessity of deposing him). But in order to force history into a depiction of the opposing forces of Enlightened, rational tolerance versus totalitarian demagoguery, the game’s script writers have to in fact divert from historical truth on a number of other counts. For one thing where the game depicts Savonarola as deriving power in a sinister putsch against the ruling Medici family the fact is that Savonarola was actually given power by Lorenzo de Medici. And where Savonarola is in the game portrayed as attempting to centralise all power in his hands, the fact is that he restored democracy to the city after many decades of Medici dictatorship and asserted his influence through charismatic authority.

The infamous bonfire of the vanities (1496) was not so much simply an act of puritanical thuggery as a high point in Florence’s religious fervour. Boticelli enthusiastically threw one his own paintings on the fire and Michelangelo is recorded as one of Savonarola’s admirers. Even Machiavelli professed admiration for the unarmed prophet’s ability to influence and persuade in the absence of coercive force. Savonarola also railed against the corruption of the Church and became its enemy for his outspoken criticisms. Eventually he was ousted in a coup d’etat by the returning Medici family resulting in his prolonged torture and eventually his public burning.

What is interesting about this story are the ambiguities. Savonarola’s Florence was socially illiberal yet democratic; religiously puritanical and defferent to hierarchy yet scathing about the actually existing religious order. To use one of those ahistorical similes Toscano rails against, if one had to find an analogue of Khomeinian Islamism in European pre-modern history, this would be it.

For the same reason as one needs to be careful with liberal revisionism in regards to Savonarola’s ambiguous story, one also needs to tread carefully in regard to denunciations of Islamism, especially by the likes of Nick Cohen, who drapes himself in the garb of Enlightened leftism. Because just as, I agree, there is nothing much to like about Islamism as a political ideology, at the same time critiques by Cohen and others are wedded to a more general anti totalitarian discourse that warns against all attempts—Islamist, communist, or otherwise—to radically break from the status quo.

The short documentary, The Burning of Girolamo Savonarola, alludes to the necessary caution required with respect to our treatment of political religion. One that Toscano’s book so thoroughly and convincingly explores across a wide historical and scholarly canvas.

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Graham Harman on Academic Nihilism

June 30, 2010 by necessaryagitation

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Academia: An Epicurean plentitude of good food and conversation?

Graham Harman has responded to my earlier piece on Academic Nihilism. Unsurprisingly, for those who have followed his career advice strand of commentary on his blog, he doesn’t suffer from academic nihilism.

In the piece he sees a certain self flagellating, masocistic tendency representative of ‘killjoy puritanical’ moralism amongst leftists around the continental philosophy scene. He also objects to the argument’s assertion that academics have it pretty good on the whole in terms of salary and working conditions.

This isn’t really a debate that will run and run—since the starting premises and overall worldviews are probably incommensurable. But I do take objection to the killjoy charge. Although there is certainly a tendency around parts of the left to engage in a kind of relentless miserabilism, that is certainly not underwriting this post I hope. If anything, the present author objects to the academic day job (although still desperately hopes that the post PhD world will deliver one) precisely because it is not ‘enriched by good food, conversations with friends, excellent reading, and the teaching of students.’

The Epicurean plenitude of simple pleasures Harman lists here have been somewhat absent in my experience of academia so far. The PhD world seems to be (with, thankfully, a few exceptions) full of weirdly antisocial types whose catchphrases when faced with the prospect of good food, drinks, or conversation seems to be ‘I have to run’ or ‘Have to shoot off’.

To where? Why? Who knows. One would like to think it is because they have work commitments, baby sitters waiting at home, or at least something similar. But that is far from the case in many instances. So why the precocious drift into late middle age?

Similarly, one can’t help but notice that most academics seem a little depressed. Its hard to put your finger on it exactly. Its like a world weary burden that drags them down. However, Harman is right that given the right circumstances teaching can be a joy. Indeed, the life in the undergraduate body is one of the few things that kept me from sinking to the lower depths of academic nihilism in the past year or so.

So I think the killjoy charge is a bit of a red herring.

He probably gets is right, though, that those of us on the left who see things just getting worse and worse ‘out there’ in the ‘real world’ do feel pretty barracked up in our monastic academic communities.

But I think the argument—and this is probably my fault for ordering of the piece—goes deeper than just pertaining to political commitments. More fundamentally, it is about the every increasing research and knowledge production that is getting diced ever thinner and thinner to the point where at some point we have to wonder what the point of it all is? As Matt Damon said in Good Will Hunting (or something similar at least): ‘If you build a house that’s a house that a family gets to live in; building is an honest profession.’

And is he not right in some way? Could not the weariness that afflicts a lot of academics, the endless gripes about teaching, and the endemic cynicism, actually stem from the realisation of the futility and irrelevance of the majority of intellectual labour? The fact that is merely sinks into an ever widening void; the academic sink hole of proliferating journals and conferences.

I intend to write a further blog post  emphasizing more this political economy aspect of academia. It seems to me that academia nihilism is almost certainly connected to the expansion of university education, and a field of intellectual discourse that has not expanded at similar rate. Hopefully from this angle killjoy charges won’t stick so easily!

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Environmentalism and the left

June 29, 2010 by necessaryagitation

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An exagerration?

Here’s an experiment. At the pub, on your Facebook wall, or wherever, criticise environmentalism and see what reaction you get from your friends on the left. My prediction is that what will result will probably be one of the most heated arguments you ever have.

Environmentalism has become a near sacred belief on the left; moreso than even what should be the left’s central concerns—class struggle and forwarding the cause of the working class against capitalism. That is not to say it is wrong, but at this stage just to point out that it comes endowed with an emotional attachment that goes beyond almost every other topic one can think of. At the launch event of Richard Seymour’s ‘The Meaning of David Cameron’ even the lack of environmentalism in the talk caused one audience member to get visibly upset. ‘All this talk of parties’ she said ‘but I don’t hear anything about the millions, yes millions, who are going to die; we have to do something and all we do is talk.’

Indeed, the stakes do seem much higher for environmentalism than anything else. Rightly or wrongly it is an apocalyptic argument that rests or falls on the heavy consequences it claims will result from inaction. For what we are talking about is not local struggle against pollution, for clean beaches and rivers and so on, but the environmental predictions related to climate change, peak oil, overpopulation and water shortages. All measure their arguments in terms of millions who may, or may not, die as a consequence of policy choices.

It is practically a given on the left that since these are consequences of capitalism that the left should take responsibility for. Foremost amongst these is growth. Since the world economy is growing and consumption rising, and the world is now governed by capitalism, ergo capitalism is responsible for ecological crisis.

These are obviously massive issues and link back to questions of our relation to Enlightenment, technology, the true meaning of Marx, utilitarian decision making, risk evaluation, if the non-human world has intrinsic value, the source of wealth being natural or derived from labour, the remit of science, and so on and so on.

Since I am one of the very few people on the left who does not buy into environmentalism, obviously in order to make a case against it (or even to have my own mind changed on the matter) it is practically a duty to take on this long and complex web of issues and presuppositions to give a rigorous, analytic take on the foundations of an anti-environmentalist left position.

To start I will begin with two books taking very opposite positions: John Bellamy Forster’s ‘Marx’s Ecology’ and Bjorn Lomborg’s ‘Cool It’. I will post commentaries on these books as I read them and hopefully begin to build up a coherent response to this thorny issue. Contributions, if not denunciations, are welcomed.

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Academic Nihilism

June 27, 2010 by necessaryagitation

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Academic nihilism: a virtuous recognition?

Like Mark Fisher’s excellent epithet ‘capitalist realism’ describing the cultural response to the doctrine of ‘there is no alternative’, I believe there is another closely related phenomenon that deserves to enter every intellectuals’ vocabularly: academic nihilism.

Academic nihilism is, I believe, something experienced by all truly critical thinkers who spend enough time behind the walls of universities. It is what comes after the realisation that what one is doing, all that heartfelt critical thought, all that deep probing for truth, and digging under the illusions of common sense, that it all adds up to very little. It can, like Tom Cruise’s life changing realisation in Jerry Macguire, come late at night during the long dark teatime of the soul. Or it can just come about through a creeping sense that grows until breaking point. But there is usually an event which triggers it’s realisation—perhaps right after spending considerable time completing a journal article, giving a conference paper, finishing your first book, or gaining your final qualifications. An emptiness; an ‘is this it?’ moment.

Not wanting to come across as yet another whiny academic, it is important to clarify the argument here. Because given the fact that academics, despite their current predicament, enjoy generally good salaries, long holidays, and relative autonomy for self determining their work, this is certainly no call for sympathy on labour market grounds.

No—academic nihilism is something immanent to the labour of the academic intellect itself. Books can cast a magic spell. They speak of debates, raging polemics, untold mysteries, and philosophical riddles to be cracked. They give the impression that if one can find the time to read just one more text, triangulate just those precise arguments, then one can deliver a killer blow and set the world to rights. The illusions begin here, in the library.

The first disillusionment comes when you meet these intellectual brawlers. For the most part there is something a bit dispiriting about the fact that the witty, passionate, learned and all knowing figure you read in the text, in real life is defensive, unable to justify their work, and whose knowledge is strictly limited to the narrow niche of their field.

The second disillusionment is when you realise the gap that separates these academic debates from the real world; and worse, the fact that most academics realise this, but seem untroubled by the knowledge and plough on nonetheless. In a politics department this second disillusionment is all the more attenuated. One learns with horror that your colleagues do not seem to have much interest in politics. They are content with their work being an abstract intellectual game; and are quite happy to admit in response to awkward questions regarding real world relevance or applicability that they are unsure, or unbothered by such quibbles.

* * *

Contrary to common sense nihilism is not just the realisation of meaninglessness. Rather, it is the repetition of behaviour that one knows to be meaningless but carries on with regardless. So in a certain sense, once academic nihilism has been recognised, one is already partly released from its grasp. For the post-academic nihilst nothing is more comical than the academic who cannot see with any perspective how banal their self regard for their ever-so-important research is.

At the same time, the post-academic nihilist faces a possibly even worse temptation: cynicism. These wise cynics believe they have extricated themselves from the illusions of academic nihilism with their Machiavellian careerism and knowing irony. Is the pragmatic cynic really released from the grasp of nihilism though? Or have they simply accommodated themselves to it whilst spinning comforting lullabies to themselves about the irrelevance of it all—a kind of inner distantiation that, for example, Slavoj Zizek associated with the appeal of Tibetan Buddism for the late capitalist office worker.

Whatever the case, it is not altogether clear that the cynic is any better than the childlike naivity of the unflective academic nihilist. In some way, better to have someone who truly believes their work is meaningful and important (no matter how deluded) than the wry cynic who knows it is all just a game and will follow any latest trend, or drum up any argument whatsoever to keep carving out their unique academic niche.

* * *

What can the post-academic nihilist do? One option would be to try to wilfully regress to the state of the naive academic. But making yourself forget is impossible; everyone knows that. Another route would be to leave academia—that route obviously makes a lot of sense, although only insofar as one is fully prepared to have their worst fears about academic nihilism painfully confirmed out there in the real world. Yet another route would be to make academia relevant by revolutionising it from within: a good idea in principle, but likely to be infuriating in practice.

Perhaps prefiguring all this needs to be a more sustained critical reflection on the source of academic nihilism. I hope I have not given the impression here that I am merely presenting a psychological malaise of the intellectual class. There are real facts and figures underlining this phenomenon. For example, the average academic article is only read twice. That is, up to six months of research and writing for an audience of two persons. I have personally also given conference papers to an audience of a single person. Academic imprints are usually published in initial runs of 100-200 copies, many of which are destined just to gather dust on library shelves. And in terms of the split between the academy and public intellectual discourse, it is large and generally unbridged.

There are no easy answers to any of these questions. Calls for academics to become populist or relevant usually have deleterious effects (of a pro status quo bent). For now, all I can plea is for those critical academics to maintain this anxious state of awareness of academic nihilism.

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Megalomania and Enlightenment

June 9, 2010 by necessaryagitation

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Werner Herzog's 'Fitzcarraldo'. Is Fitz an Enlightenment hero, or megalomaniacal villain?

Slavoj Žižek once insightfully noted that the only time your ever see productive labour on screen is in the villains’ lairs of the James Bond films. This sounds about right. Take any number of films or tv programmes based around work—even of a white collar kind—and you won’t find many backs to the grindstone. In the 1990s series Ally McBeal, for instance, work seemed to generally involve coffee breaks, watercooler gossip and late night prattling about. When work does make it to the screen nowadays it is in the form of such programmes as BBC 3’s documentary series ‘Blood, Sweat and Luxuries’ where a group of generally posh, young layabouts from London (supposedly representative of an idle culture of consumption in Britain) fly around the world to sample the hardships of manual labour and low wages in assorted developing countries. The moral of the series is cashed out when they are all disturbed by the low wages and go back home to endorse fair trade and send some of their second hand clothes out to help the people—their blissful ignorance preserved, even reinforced, of the fact that their own lifestyles are supported by daddy’s exploitation of workers much closer to home.

Recently, however, I watched two films that put productive labour at the centre of their narratives. The first was Werner Herzog’s 1982 ‘Fitzcarraldo’ and the second the more recent ‘There Will be Blood’ by director Paul Thomas Anderson. In both films a megalomaniacal entrepreneur sets his sights on a grand vision. Fitzcarraldo, played by Klaus Kinski, endeavors to take a steam boat up the side of a mountain and down the other side again. In order to achieve this task he enlists the help of thousands of the local indigenous population to build a monumental pulley system. Similarly, in Thomas Anderson’s ‘There Will be Blood’ Daniel Day-Lewis’ character, Daniel Plainview, sets his sights on building a 100 mile oil pipeline from the oil fields to the coasts.

Whilst superficially both films serve an indictment of the mentality of the Enlightenment figure fixated on the mastery of the world via grand engineering projects, the result is rather one of entrancement. Where our productive infrastructure is generally just taken as a given—to the extent that allows certain sections of society to get quite snooty about it—both films show the sheer ambition necessary to accomplish these groundbreaking feats. Cinematographically there is nothing more awe inspiring than seeing the coordination of mass labour in the service of the construction of a common goal. The building of something from nothing is spectacular to watch and an underexploited theme for filmmaking. Both movies manage to fill the viewer with awe at the construction and sheer force of will invested these projects.

So the question is: are Fitz and Purview heroes or anti-heroes? On one level surely the answer is obvious: they put lives recklessly at risk for their bloody minded determination to achieve their goals. In the Guardian Peter Bradshaw wrote of ‘There Will be Blood’: “The movie speaks of oil’s savage, entrepreneurial pre-history; in one haunted man, it shows our dysfunctional relationship with capital and natural resources, and even hints at a grim future in which our addiction to oil can no longer be fed.” Which is one way of looking at it. Another would be to see in the relentless psychological drive of figures like Purview the Enlightenment project to extricate us from the savagery of scarcity and underdevelopment.

Hegel wrote of the passions of world historical individuals as driving history forward through their unreflexive drive for mastery of the world. Yes, there would be blood split and heart aches aplenty, but through the processes of reason these resolve themselves in the creation of rational, more advanced social forms. Marx took this one step further: the world historical individual had his day and was to be replaced by the world historical class forcing their way into history. Lenin’s centrality in the October revolution, however, showed that even with the collective class forces at work there was still a place for Hegel’s world historical individual too. The Bolshevik party changed the world. Even for die hard anti communists it is hard to argue against the fact that the presence of large communist powers in the 20th century were responsible for the development of social democracy and Keynesianism to guard against revolution at home.

Thus, the megalomaniacal Enlightenment mentality is neither exclusive to the capitalist entrepreneur, nor to the revolutionary communist. Obsessive drive to accomplish goals without the anxious moral quarms and hangups of the reflexive post modern liberal is what actually accomplishes things and moves history forward in a dialectical sense. Fitz, Purview, and possibly even James Bonds’ villains are all in this sense  Enlightenment heroes, even if they will have to be beaten on the battlefield by their properly communist rivals.

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Robin Hood in the 21st century—rallying the poor for the civil liberties of the rich

May 31, 2010 by necessaryagitation

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Robin Hood in the 21st century. From hero of the poor to civil rights campaigner rallying the nation against foreign backed attempts at regime change.

Robin Hood: a populist yarn and surefire crowd pleaser if ever there was one. He lives in the woods with his merry men, stealing from the rich, and redistributing to the poor; all the while engaging in a tit for tat with his arch nemesis, the feudal lacky the Sheriff of Nottingham. What could go wrong?

Apparently for Hollywood executives nowadays, though, this all must sound a little bit too much like class struggle, or terrorism, or ominously like piracy off the coast of Africa. For in the new retelling of the story, teaming up director Ridley Scott and actor Russell Crowe again, there is not a lot of stealing from the rich to give to the poor going on.Where in the conventional story a band of nothings wage something of guerrilla war against Nottingham’s greedy nobles, in Scott’s version Robin Hood instead becomes a prophet of civil liberties—demanding legal rights for the regional barons of England.

To give a most cursory plot summary: set in the 11th century the new king John through a mixture of arrogance, greed and simple bad statesmanship, ends up fomenting civil war in his own country. After Richard the Lionheart’s crusades (which Robin of course rejects as an enlightened pre-post-Christian multiculturalist) England is a depleted nation; but it is only the shenanigans of the French which push the situation to the point of insurrection, as the barons rally against the new king. This turns out to be instigated and plotted for the purposes of disuniting the country to aid the French invasion (one can imagine Iranian President Ahmadinejad nodding knowingly along with all of this).

When king John goes to address the barons plotting war against the crown, Robin Hood steps into the fray, attempting to fulfill his fathers dream of inscribing a charter of liberties into the nation’s laws. When John mockingly asks Robin if he ‘wants all men to have castles’ Robin—recast as a good liberal, civil rights campaigner with no egalitarian, material aims—wittily retorts that ‘every Englishman’s house is his castle.’ Thus, for the sake of the support of the barons, and to reunite a country on the verge of civil war against the real enemy (perennial johnny foreigner trying to take the green and pleasant land), Robin proposes that the king give his word to sign the new charter. The king agrees; the civil war is snubbed out and all the barons in the land unite, with Robin Hood leading the charge, to give the French a good drubbing at the white cliffs of Dover. Foreign backed attempts at regime change are resoundingly defeated.

Then for no obvious reason other than sheer bastardliness John rescinds his offer publicly and declares Robin Hood an outlaw. The film ends, with the promise of potential sequels.

The problems with this new plot line are not just ideological, however, but dramatic. Like with many new Hollywood epics such as the Star Wars prequels, what was previously cast as a group of rebel underdogs fighting against the clear antagonist of the rich and powerful—that is, with a clear conflict of interests driving the narrative dialectically forward—is replaced by something more akin to a split within factions of the state. Consequently, there is no real drama, as there are no real clear lines of antagonism. Most of the film is spent documenting the various high political intrigues and horse trading, with no really obvious protagonist or antagonist, other than the cinematographic clues given by the inordinate amount of time the camera spends focused on Crowe. The different sides are reduced to national stereotypes (sexually promiscuous and untrustworthy French vs. stoic Brits), and superficial psychologising—Robin Hood is good because he is outspoken, loyal, respectful, and trustworthy; King John is bad because he is arrogant, nepotistic, has a bad temper and doesn’t keep his word.

The result is a totally denuded and dramatically incoherent retelling of the story that attempts to carry the viewer along with flashy battle scenes and, admittedly spectacular, set and costume design. If there is a moral to this story, then, it is that the world historical individuals Hegel once speculated would bring reason on horseback probably wouldn’t be doing it just to present a new charter of right to the King. Social change requires real antagonisms to resolve its contradictions; currying favour with the king and relying on his good will for modest legal reforms, well, even Hollywood seems to admit that will not cut it.

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Cut philosophy, get theology (or, two arguments for philosophy in universities)

May 18, 2010 by necessaryagitation

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The bulging shelves of bookstores' philosophy shelves: only possible due to institutional support

There have been numerous pieces on the Guardian’s Comment is Free (CiF) about the Middlesex philosophy closure, usually protesting it on the basis of the department’s research excellence. Below the line, though, some commenters have questioned the very purpose of philosophy: particularly of the continental variety. Surely as resources are squeezed by recession, their argument goes, such a decadent subject, contributing so little to the economy and practical skills has a hard time justifying its existence? Some even suggested that philosophy is something that should just be done in one’s spare time, and does not warrant either a teaching post, or years of full-time commitment to study.

There seem to be a number of naïve assumptions underwriting these suggestions. The first reminds me of a conversation I had with one of my undergraduate students after our last seminar of the term. A few pints in, he asked, like many of them tend to, ‘why do you only want to teach?’ I explained that teaching a related subject in a university is one of the few ways you can have both the mental space and a sliver of free time available to attempt to make philosophical breakthroughs. He had different plans though: he was going to be CEO of a company, and write landmark philosophy books—like a Cicero figure, of sorts. I wished him good luck; but in the full knowledge that nowadays with tens of thousands of philosophers working full time in their fields, the idea is fanciful that anyone can engage at that level of thought in their spare time. It is simply incredulous that we can return to the days when Enlightenment gentlemen wrote treatises in their spare time; and headed to the salons at nighttime to discuss them. All those that engage with contemporary philosophy will know that like most else in the modern world philosophy is not immune to the increasing specialization, division of labour, and depth of knowledge required to produce new knowledge in the field—precluding any retreat to an amateur approach. Like most other professionalized fields, that is, it requires institutional support for its intellectual labour.

There are what are in classical economics are called ‘externalities’. These are effects produced by the operation of the market that are not internalized within the market itself—like the costs of pollution, for instance. However, things sometimes work the other way. Production unsupported by the market that the market gains from quite unilaterally, without bearing the cost of it. Recently I was invited into a major publisher’s office to discuss their new philosophy line. They had done the research; in the marketplace philosophy is thriving. So there is obviously a large demand for these works. But for anyone who knows much about publishing it will not come as a shock to learn that for the authors there is little more than pocket money in royalties produced for all but a handful of authors like J.K.Rowling. It is thus the case the institutional support of universities permits the supply of such rich philosophical works available to the general public at a cheap price. If philosophers were, god forbid, forced to try and make a living from the royalties of their books, the whole system would be unsustainable at anything less than something like £500 a pop! The point being that even to for people to study philosophy in their spare time—at least to the standard available from any inner city bookstore at a reasonable price—it is precisely only institutional support which enables that in the first place.

This leads into the second accusation: the idea that there is no need for philosophy in the first place. Science allows us to build computers, bridges and put rovers on Mars, what can philosophy claim to contribute? Isn’t it all just a bit of a waste of time? But really this is a gross abstraction from the real world.  Few would deny that there is a persistent human tendency towards asking the ultimate questions. Questioning the cosmic, existential and greatest social-political questions has hardly withering away with capitalist modernity. In this sense I see philosophy, particularly of the continental variety, as serving principally the continuation of the Enlightenment project. This can be seen, most instrumentally, in drawing out the meaning of the multiple scientific and mathematical discoveries of the last three or four centuries. Alone science permits great technical advance, and yet this is not enough to render these insights meaningful for people’s everyday lives. In the other sense, I also see philosophy as filling in the hole left by the vacation of religion. Philosophy as a secular project seeks to understand what previously was attributed to divine causes. In my opinion it is the case that if philosophy withers, religion can return with vengeance. Cut philosophy, get theology.

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Are attacks on philosophy correlated with the return of theology?

Indeed, under New Labour we have seen the introduction of faith based schools, and whilst I don’t (as yet) have the figures to back it up my gut instinct is that whilst philsophy departments have been consistently under threat, theology departments have done rather well. The Arts and Humanities Council, for instance, has a huge Religion and Society program underway. They also recently finished a large project on recovering all of Isaac Newton’s theological writings. In the last ten years theology has, through a combination of intellectual fashion and, I suspect, a well financed revenue stream made great inroads into philosophy itself. It is increasingly  expected that philosophers be familiar with the arcane metaphysics of St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotas. So, the predictable Marxist that I am, I would argue that we need to defend philosophy precisely because it serves to keep religion and theology at bay.

This argument and others can be debated at the ICA event: ‘Who’s Afraid of Philosophy’.

Posted in political commentary, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments »

Middlesex occupation ends, and Tariq Ali whimpers

May 15, 2010 by necessaryagitation

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Is Tariq Ali's call for a popular front with the rightwing to defend 'high quality education' the way forward?

Today was meant to be a talk by Tariq Ali at the ‘Transversal Space’ of occupied Mansion House, Middlesex University. Instead of a lecture, however, people arrived to discover that the whole building had been surrounded by security guards. An injunction had been served to the occupiers by university management, and individual students had been named in the document. These tactics obviously worked, because after holding the entire building for a week, the occupiers decided to leave as a group—using Ali’s talk outside on the lawn as the focus for a post-occupation rally.

I am never sure how to feel at these moments. Despite the applause all round—which the students obviously deserved after their heroic actions—applauding the exit leaves me feeling cold. Although the vacation of Mansion House by no means implies the end of the struggle, it provided a focus for activities with a real, corporeal commitment and, crucially, an expropriation of the university’s resources, i.e. its teaching space. The importance of this should not be underestimated.

The deflationary feeling was compounded by a bizarrely uninspiring speech by Tariq Ali. Meandering and obviously unprepared, it lacked the fire and brimstone befitting such a militant action.

Even worse was the content. Whilst liberal types are wont to bemoan the ‘unrealistic’ radical left, it seems to me that, quite the contrary, the radical left often suffers from far too little radicalism. Ali argued that all students should stand together to defend ‘high quality education’; that vice-chancellors should get a pay cut; and, most disturbingly of all, that a popular front should be formed with the centre and the right to defend public education.

Could these words have been spoken by a figure such as, say, Nick Clegg? After all, Tory-Lib Dem ministers have just agreed to take a pay cut. Tick. All profuse a commitment to high quality education. Tick. And all appeal to a broad base of liberal-left and rightwing libertarian sentiment. Tick, again. Surely at an event like this we should pushing exactly the kind of ‘unrealistic’ ideas to give the prefix radical in front of left its worth. These could include, for example: the abolition of all tuition fees and the democratic management of all universities by academics and students. It could also be linked into the wider struggle against cuts across the public sector, which will doubtless become the focus of a working class struggle in the coming years.

In general, I would have much preferred to hear more of the occupiers speak—to find out more of what they had learned through the experience, and their thoughts on the way forward. Figures of radicalism past like Ali, weary with the defeats of the 1980s, are probably not what is need to inspire a new generation, or push the ideas needed today.

ADDITION: This comment piece has already been attacked as ‘depressing’  ‘lies’ and ‘pre-written by the institute’ (which institute?). I would like to add the obvious observation that Necessary Agitation (NA) has been nothing less than highly supportive of the occupation from the start. NA was there at the first meeting as one of the initially minority voices encouraging the occupation. NA spent the next day canvassing support on the other two campuses of Middlesex university. And it was only work commitments that interrupted further involvement in occupation activities. It is not my belief that we should self censor ourselves at these key junctures. Rather, as this blog will not hesitate to do, it is rather our imperative if we believe in the cause above out egos to engage in critical responses to events.

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

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