Notes On, In, and Around Herbert Marcuse’ Eros and Civilization
v
https://www.marcuse.org/herbert/people/sophie/sophie.htm
20210612
vii
“… REALITY PRINCIPLE…”
***
“Civilization and want:…”
“… The mental apparatus as a dynamic union of opposites …” -> delectable dialectics?
viii
“… : taboos on pleasure …” from whence? are religion and rule of law originally of the oppressed?
see Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens
“… (Phylogenesis) …” -> Why a fascination with biology? -> the unanswer -> able -> see An Essay on Liberation, Herbert Marcuse (probably this same one :) )
“… Dual content of the sense of guilt …”
*”… Progress in productivity and progress in domination …”
viii — ix
viii
dialectic component -> “… Ego as aggressive and transcending subject
“… The eternal return in Aristotle, Hegel, Nietzsche — (Benjamin sees Blanqui
ix
? “… Obsolescence of scarcity …”
*”… Phantasy versus reason …”
*”… Truth value of phantasy …”
see Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens
It is the holding on to, the status quo, the believing in self, that makes us always, always stay too long.
“… play …”
xi
“… the fatal union of productivity and destruction …”
One example of those is the changes in individual humans that occur between elementary school and secondary school. Curiosity is repressed in the vast majority.
“… I neglected or minimized the fact that this “obsolescent” rationale had been vastly strengthened (if not replaced) by even more efficient forms of social control. …” Movement beyond food/water to belonging/-f-u-l-f-i-l-l- gratification
“… cathexis. …” holding, retention (besetzung — occupation) concentration on a single object
xii
“… They deliver the goods; they satisfy the sexual and the aggressive energy of their subjects. …” Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
“… -m-o-r-e-t-h-a-n-t-h-e-t-r-a-d-i-t-i-o-n-a-l- …” new
“… Scientific management of instinctual needs has long since become a vital factor in the reproduction of the system: merchandise which has to be bought and used is made into objects of the libido; and the national Enemy who has to be fought and hated is distorted and inflated to such an extent that he can activate and satisfy aggressiveness in the depth dimension of the unconscious. …” Walter Benjamin, Sympathy with the commodity
xiii
“… infernal places illuminate the whole.”
***
“… it is precisely in the name of freedom that crimes against humanity are being perpetrated.”
xiii
“… These infernal places illuminate the whole. It is easy and sensible to see in them only pockets of poverty and misery in a growing society capable of eliminating them gradually and without a catastrophe. …”
“…: eliminated at what cost — … in human lives and in human freedom? …”
“… it is precisely in the name of freedom that crimes against humanity are being perpetrated. …”
xiv
“… Welfare-Through-Warfare State …”
xv
biology
“… the oppressed are not strong enough to liberate themselves. …” pg. xvi; by definition of by some other assumed standard?
“… democratically “contained,” …” Democracy is a problematic container (no vessel is ideal). What are the problems of particular forms of democracy and can democracy be used to resolve them?
xvi
“… only those … free from the blessings of capitalism could possibly change it into a free society: …” pg. xv see also Benjamin’s contention that history, to be unique, must be told by the oppressed (On the Concept of History, XII, Walter Benjamin)
xvii
“… The body against “the machine” — not against the [policy] mechanism constructed to make life safer and milder, to attenuate the cruelty of nature, but against the machine which has taken over the mechanism: the political machine, the corporate machine, the cultural and educational machine which has welded blessing and curse into one rational whole. …”
“… The capability to overkill and to overburn, and the mental behavior that goes with it are by-products of the development of the productive forces within a system of exploitation and repression; they seem to become more productive the more comfortable the system becomes to its privileged subjects. …”
xviii
“… For the overdeveloped countries, this chance would be tantamount to the abolition of the conditions under which man’s labor perpetuates, as self-propelling power, his subordination to the productive apparatus, and, with it, the obsolete forms of the struggle for existence. …” for or against
Woman on the Edge of Time, Marge Piercy
xix
“… Western civilization has always glorified the hero, the sacrifice of life for the city, the state, the nation; it has rarely asked the question of whether the established city, state, nation were worth the sacrifice. …”
xx
“… And it is not a bad life for those who comply and repress. …” for we offer is as the fruit of the tree of knowledge of life and death was offered
xxii
“… The people, …, are on the side of that which is — not that which can … be. …”
“… the obsolescent need for full-time labor …”
“… unproductive activities. …” depends on those who define
the most efficient uselessness possibly; efficiently employed — the process of employment
20210613
xxii
The process of employment is a changing process.
xxiii
“…; it has to develop needs which transcend the market economy and may even be incompatible with it. …”
“… these aspirations are translated into administered cultural activities, sponsored by the government and the big corporations — an extension of their executive arm into the soul of the masses. …”
“… But this sort of satisfaction would be tantamount to denial, for the erotic energy of the Life Instincts cannot be freed under the dehumanizing conditions of profitable affluence. …” ?
xxiv-xxv
“… the organized refusal to continue work on the material and intellectual instruments which are now being used against man — for the defense of the liberty and prosperity of those who dominate the rest. …”
Preface to the first edition
xxvii
psychological -> political; parallel structures
“… identifiable psychical processes are being absorbed by the function of the individual state … “ statistical modes
“… The era tends to be totalitarian even where it has not produced totalitarian states. …” use oppression as the metric
xxvii-xxviii
Thinking on Evans commentary on social media — the witness we give to our in and out groups and the ability to see into the psyche’s of others via various platforms. It is a shift civil strife; not war, though deaths abound, and not familial because it includes links to those we have never sat with.
***
less an ethic and more an aesthetic; affinity to good and evil is their existence
3
integration of archetypical reality
renunciation <-> delay <-> progress
“… The methodical sacrifice of libido, its rigidly enforced deflection to socially useful activities and expressions, is culture. …” culture — enforced deflection of libido to social use
4
* “… Concentration camps, mass exterminations, world wars, and atom bombs are no “relapse into barbarism,” but the unrepressed implementation of the achievements of modern science, technology, and domination. …” an action is most effective when ubiquitous
5
Is there a difference between the gradual subtleization of repression and the abolition of repression — in either case relationship is lost — in the first through ubiquity, in the second through denial (of existence).
6
“… In shifting the emphasis from the unconscious [biological]to the conscious [cultural], from the biological [unconscious] to the cultural [conscious] factors, they ct off the roots of society in the instincts and instead take society at the level on which it confronts the individual as his ready made “envionment,” whithout wuestioning its origin and legitimacy. …”
7
“… theory of man, …”
8
disorder — a property of order
civilization — culture; front cover
repress… — restraint, constraint, suppression
instinct — drive
11
“… Left free to pursue their natural objectives, the basic instincts of man would be incompatible with all lasting association and preservation: they would destroy even where they unite. …” 300,000 years vs. ?; maybe some more modern bifurcation?
“…, integral satisfaction of needs — …” the interlocking, ever decreasing, sum of things below the curve of humanity (religion?)
12
“… human instincts under the influence of the external reality. … reality which shapes, …” variants of reality; external reality; shaping reality;
13
“… Because of this lasting gain through renunciation and restraint, according to Freud, the reality principle “safeguards” rather than “dethrones,” “modifies rather than denies, the pleasure principle. …”
Permanent Shelter (In Place)
let the professionals roam about, emergency or no, risking their lives (even when there is no risk — there is always risk)
and the fools as well; we will feel safe
14
“… Under the reality principle, the human being develops the function of reason: it learns to “test” the reality, to distinguish between good and bad, true and false, useful and harmful [and also learns that there is great difficulty in coming to agreement on the differences between each of these concepts]. …” it learns to [document and] categorize reality
14–15
“…, neither … desires nor alteration of reality are henceforth [their] own: they are “organized” by … society. … If absence from repression is the archetype of freedom, then civilization is the struggle against this freedom. …”
15
“… The fact that the reality principle has to be re-established continually in the development of man indicates that its triumph over the pleasure principle is never complete and never secure. …”
16
“… return of the repressed …” How does this relate to [Nietzsche’s] eternal recurrence?
“… the unfree individual introjects his masters and their commands into his own mental apparatus. …” Stockholm Syndrome
Scarcity w/o knowing others don’t participate
Scarcity with this knowledge
Scarcity with the stated ideal of equality (or even equity)
Scarcity with this knowledge & self-imposition (asceticism)
17
work is keeping humans from fucking? (that does sound like work) “fuck police” :)
“… The notion that a non-repressive civilization is impossible is a cornerstone of Freudian theory. …” also a late nineteenth, early twentieth century ideal
“… civilization and barbarism, …” On the Concept of History (VII), Walter Benjamin
“… Eros … Thanatos. …” These two always come out in our religions. Eros and Thanatos are sure signs of religious activity. When they are woven into one you have the masses on your side: Maenads to 5-Star generals, Dionysius, Jesus, Abraham, Mohammed, Vishnu, Coyote, and the Bodhisattva each holds death inside of love inside of death.
18
As we move towards unbeing, we recognize the creative act. There nihilism is; the unbeen, un-now, un-will-be. We may strive for it, but will always fail to bring it into being and so will deem ourselves incomplete, less than the other Gods we have produced.
“… . Whatever liberty exists in the realm of the developed consciousness, and in the world it has created, is only derivative, …”
“… , and in the world it has created, is only derivative, compromised freedom, gained at the expense of the full satisfaction of needs. And in so far as the full satisfaction of needs … “ an ever-changing substance “ … is happiness: it involves the repressive modification (sublimation) of happiness. …” seems to be contrasted with nihilism; a freedom of unbeing
19
“… recherche du temps perdu …” Marcel Proust see On the Concept of History (XVII), Walter Benjamin; also Proust’s In Search of Lost Time
20
Symposium — Eternal Recurrence and the Unconscious: The Question of Fate in Psychoanalysis
https://www.freud.org.uk/2017/09/30/eternal-recurrence-unconscious-question-fate-psychoanalysis/
Death Drive, Futurist Fascism, and the Eternal Return
https://www.sholetteseminars.com/death-drive-futurist-fascism-and-the-eternal-return/
incompleteness is different than infinite
20210614
21
The Origin of the Repressed Individual (Ontogenesis)
22
On a particular continuum: the unconscious is preceded by what does not exist and is followed by the conscious which is in turn followed by non-existent experiences.
The ur-ground, could it be, is a fertile nihilism.
“… a dynamic union of opposites …”
bipedal synthesis; Hegel; desire of the patterned singularity of two
24
Each of us operates as a blur about our mean which for each of us has a different variability. In the same amount of time, some of us experience, whether we want to or not, hundreds of times what another experiences in the same amount of time.
“… to free … or to keep … constant or to keep … low …” the last two — if the second is a continuum — are the same
25
“… reduce, … keep constant … remove …” there is also increase
26
a formulation: death (the unknown) always empty; life (status quo) overflowing — amenable to analysis or continuity
The Clone
Carrying myself. I could understand no difference. As an other being they grew within me until I could hold them no longer. At the moment of their separation from me I was determined to maintain my selfhood for us both, but even in my words I began to fail.
I controlled all that was about me and emptied it of all that I could not control. Likewise they who are me will control the same. As long as we remain the same we will be in control.
“… life-reproducing …” but any life produced is only parallel to its creator, and not equivalent
sexuality is regressive only as a cultural phenomenon — change the culture, undo the regression see Gender Trouble, Judith Butler (index: repressive hypothesis)
27
cultural ecology
“… which gives the life processes a definite “direction” …” genetic hypothesis
neuroscience and Freud
28
If only we could surround ourselves (or maybe them) with death and never acknowledge their presence.
28–29
“… Never before has death been so consistently taken into the essence of life; but never before also has death come so close to Eros. …”
29
“… relief …” the limits of relief are malleable
30
the ego seeks a niche — in a simple form, a bowl of lower potential in which to rest
31
I, Dædalus, creator of the maze, plagiarized my object from experience. Because the monsters cannot kill me there is only an endless wandering.
Now that Naucrate and Icarus are both dead I, who never felt companionship, feel even more alone. That this is true gives me hope.
“… The memory of gratification is at the origin of all thinking, and the impulse to recapture past gratification is the hidden driving power behind the process of thought. …” pattern-seeking
“… “detours,” …” mazes
“… superego …” ? if there are layers then these are layers (this is change)
“… parents; …” symbols of experience (here their Δ is lower than for an orphan); community; society; space :)
20210615
32
“… corporealization of the psyche …” the fact of reality
“… development, …” maze
33
To be is an ecological artefact. (a hoi in our many polloi)
“… their pattern is fixed at the childhood level. …” at what point is the subconscious fully autonomously formed? — prior to experience; ecological; neural; biological; chemical; physical
“… freedom from want was a necessity, …” this is an industrial concept; a jealously guarded bit of IP (or P in general) — such freedom is purchaseable, but never complete
34
“… In the case of the human organism, this is an historical world. …”
- Benjamin
- prediction based on history; reality based on prediction (but not chaos); I need to understand statistics better.
“… civilization … as organized domination …”
along all paths. Domination and organisation are overlapping sets.
35
“… historical processes … as natural processes. …”
“… (a) Surplus-repression: the restrictions necessitated by social domination. This is distinguished from (basic) repression: the “modifications” of the instincts necessary for the perpetuation of the human race in civilization. …”
“… Ananke …” Fate
“… (Lebensnot) … life need — life necessity
“… whatever satisfaction is possible necessitates work, more or less painful arrangements and undertakings for the procurement of the means for satisfying needs. …”
36
“… However, this argument, which looms large in Freud’s metapsychology, is fallacious in so far as it applies to the brute fact of scarcity what actually is the consequence of a specific organization of scarcity, and of a specific existential attitude enforced by this organization. The prevalent scarcity has, throughout civilization (although in very different modes), been organized in such a way that it has not been distributed collectively in accordance with individual needs, nor has the procurement of goods for the satisfaction of needs been organized with the objective of best satisfying the developing needs of the individuals. Instead, the distribution of scarcity as well as the effort of overcoming it, the mode of work, have been imposed upon individuals — first by mere violence, subsequently by a more rational utilization of power. …”
“… Domination … is exercised by a particular group or individual in order to sustain and enhance itself in a privileged position. …”
“… rational exercise of authority … is derived from knowledge and confined to the administration of functions and arrangements necessary for the advancement of the whole. …”
{these both appear to be related to scale as well as to membership}
36–37
“… Such domination does not exclude technical, material, and intellectual progress, but only as an unavoidable by-product while preserving irrational sarcity, want, and constraint. …”
37
“…, for every form of the reality principle must be embodied in a system of societal institutions -a-n-d- -r-e-l-a-t-i-o-n-s- {redundant} …, laws and values which transmit and enforce the required “modification” of the instincts. …” education
“… those indispensable …” Δ
“… -c-i-v-i-l-i-z-e-d- …” redundant unless one imagines a universal human association
20210616
37–38
instances of surplus repression in one society may be basic repression in another society
a society where murder of any citizen is acceptable is organized in what way?
38
“…, basic repression and surplus-repression have been inextricably intertwined, …” the meeting of cultures
39
“… coprophilic …” enjoying contact with excrement
“… subduing of the proximity senses in civilization: …” Fringe season 5
a tendency to greater individual distance
40
Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Sigmund Freud
perfection and completion
I need Foucault’s work on human sexuality.
41
“… that sexual love is a relationship between two people, in which a third can only be superfluous or disturbing, …” ? is this addressed (even abstractly) in Gender Trouble by Judith Butler? I think so. {What an absurd and limiting idealization. We could also write that sexual love is masturbatory, in which any other person can only be superfluous or disturbing. I think the most disturbing part of this statement is the level of commitment implied by can only be.}
42
“… “instinct towards perfection,” …” completion
emotional ties <-> group mind
43
Community, no matter how bowdlerized, has a sexual component.
44
The dialectic is one mode of a force table. Continue adding, while maintaining equilibrium, and other modes are represented.
“… performance …” competitive
45
“… domination has been increasingly rationalized: …” pg. 36
“…; but their labor is work for an apparatus which they do not control, which operates as an independent power to which individuals must submit if they want to live. …” the change: work for an apparatus they do control; work for a power dependent on them; a surplus of interested workers to organize and carry out a task {but then one must accept the death of one’s corpus when one loses control; the power becomes independent; interested workers no longer exist;}
46
“…, the individual lives his repression “freely” as his own life: he desires what he is supposed to desire; his gratifications are profitable to him and to others; he is reasonably and often even exuberantly happy. This happiness, which takes place part-time during the few hours of leisure between the working days or working nights, but sometimes also during work, enables him to continue his performance, which in turn perpetuates his labor and that of the others. His erotic performance is brought in line with his societal performance. Repression disappears in the grand objective order of things which rewards more or less adequately the complying individuals and, in doing so, reproduces more or less adequately society as a whole. …”
47
“… Man exist only parttime, during the working days, as an instrument of alienated performance; the rest of the time he is free for himself. …” part-time humanity
But are we really not doing human things part of the time? We are doing human things, but we could be doing other human things that didn’t make us feel awful.
48
entertainments with direct control of leisure time
“… organization of sexuality …”
“… performance principle …” pornography
“… This process achieves the socially necessary desexualization of the body: the libido becomes concentrated in one part of the body, leaving most of the rest free for use as the instrument of labor. …”
49
“… a secret envy of those who enjoy them had to be strangled. …”
“… a secret envy …”
of love
***
competitive performance principle
“… promesse de bonheur …” promise of happiness
50
“… In a repressive order, which enforces the equation between normal, socially useful, and good, the manifestations of pleasure for its own sake must appear as fleurs du mal. …” flowers of evil; see the Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire, Walter Benjamin
Sexual reproduction and its relation to the performance principle carries into offspring where dominance is also manifest — the functional components of being a human are overshadowed by the parental interests which is then transferred to peers and then to employers
51
manifestation of labor elsewhere so the U. S. society can go “off-script”
“… Liebestod, …” death love
52
reality principle and superego are highly correlated
“… In attacking, splitting, changing, pulverizing things and animals (and, periodically, also men), man extends his dominion over the world and advances to ever richer stages of civilization. …” Less this than the threat of being able to do so again. When an I or entity predicts its domination — that is the destructive.
54
“…: the very progress of civilization leads to the release of increasingly destructive forces. …” of a form of civilization where civilization is just the idea of layers of human necessity — x supports y and y supports z {something we are born into, but cannot undo; Harari ponders the agricultural revolution as one such moment in history — one where going back would mean large amounts of passively created as well as actively created suffering. He also posits that capitalism is an other such ideological development.}
20210617
57
One way to erode ideology is through tangibility.
“… As psychology tears the ideological veil and traces the construction of the personality, it is led to dissolve the individual: …” statistics
58
“… constellations, …” Benjamin also uses this term
60
“… And this phylogenetic hypothesis reveals that mature civilization is still conditioned by archaic mental immaturity. …” because humans have not changed, but their tools have
“… symbolic …” metaphor?
62
where does reflection on our father’s sexual conduct get us? (how much can we know?) it gets us to ourselves
63
resource-based — who was responsible for distribution?
64
Lasting satisfaction of needs.
68
“… redemption …” On the Concept of History, Walter Benjamin
“… guilt is the expression of the conflict of ambivalence, …”
68–69
The floating anxiety is unsinkable. It is ghost-like. It has a lightness one sees in floating objects, in the rising of objects, and in the vertiginous effects of the risen.
“… The crime is re-enacted …” probably just a motif of fiction — Macbeth, Hamlet, Marie Antoinette; Zeus, Harry Potter
70
“… deification removed his message from this world. Suffering and repression were perpetuated. …” {I wonder about these kinds of statements and their similar perpetuation of this particular mythology. Jesus’ message is inextricably linked with Christian history in a way that Martin Luther King Junior’s is not.}
Loss of humanity.
71
“… The executioners and their bands fought the specter of a liberation which they desired but which they were compelled to reject. …”
We allow life to threaten us with its freedom and attempt to contain it with our own.
72
“… the functions of science and religion tend to become complementary; through their present usage, they both deny the hopes which once aroused and teach men to appreciate the facts in a world of alienation. …” {and this is a problem of science as religion/ideology. the only way to disrupt this is to provide access to scientific understanding.}
76
“… restrained educational and economic authority, …”
77
78
the pathology of guilt
80
God the dominant.
God the functional.
“… if the abolition of domination destroys culture itself, then it remains the supreme crime, …”
following an ideal for its function
following an ideal due to compulsion
following an ideal to serve one’s own ascension
{relate to Harari’s ideological thesis in Homo Deus}
81
Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihaly; (fusion of work & pleasure) — this assumes work and productivity are equivalent which is, to me, false
84
*“… The psychical sources and resources of work, and its relation to sublimation, constitute one of the most neglected areas of psychoanalytic theory. Perhaps nowhere else has psychoanalysis so consistently succumbed to the official ideology of the blessings of “productivity.” Small wonder then, that in the Neo-Freudian schools, where (as we shall see in the Epilogue) the ideological trends in psychoanalysis triumph over its theory, the tenor of work morality is all-pervasive. The “orthodox” discussion is almost in its entirety focused on “creative” work, especially art, while work in the realm of necessity — labor — is relegated to the background. …”
“… And artistic work, where it is genuine, seems to grow out of a non-repressive instinctual constellation and to envisage non-repressive aims — …” genuine art synced w/nonrepression
85
“… The work that created and enlarged the material basis of civilization was chiefly labor, alienated labor, painful and miserable — and still is. …” How otherwise? And what of baubles?
86
“… secured the growth of civilization. …” ? civilization should not be human alone
“… surgical practice …” in careful manipulation of the environment
87
hypothesis and observation
88
“… the inadequacy of our methods of regulating human relations in the family, the community and the state” — … “ this includes the other two; it is not a call to greater control, just to greater flexibility
20210618
89
rationality is the creation of patterns; what, then, are recognition of patterns and observation of patterns?
eternal recurrence } just another pattern (π) see inside back cover
“… increasingly rational, …” a part of the pattern
“… Society emerges as a lasting and expanding system of useful performances; the hierarchy of functions and relations assumes the form of objective reason: law and order are identical with the life of society itself. …” Foucault?
90
“… At the societal level, recurrent rebellions and revolutions have been followed by counterrevolutions and restorations. …” I think Marcuse develops this further in A Study On Authority.
“…, the struggle of the oppressed has ended in establishing a new, “better” system of domination; …” the United States has benefited from its own history, lessons of Nazi Germany, and lessons of South Africa {an empire willing to learn from its subjects and change according to their desires might be an empire that lasts longer than one that ignores its subjects.
“… . Each revolution has been the conscious effort to replace one ruling group by another; …” seems to singular (but singularity is complex)
91
“…: it explains the “identification” of those who revolt with the power against which they revolt. …” a moving whole; a chaotic whole; a whole in suspense — and yet a sense of victimization
reproduction is an organismic mode
92
“… The still prevailing impoverishment of vast areas of the world is no longer due chiefly to the poverty of human and natural resources but to the manner in which they are distributed and utilized. …”
93
“… . Technology operates against the repressive utilization of energy in so far as it minimizes the time necessary for the production of the necessities of life, thus saving time for the development of needs beyond the realm of necessity and of necessary waste. …”
domination is the constant?
94
“… harmonized with profitable conformity.”
95
alienation, though, is never far from us when we are away from home
“… “unhappy love,” …” mediated love (by a potion)
96
“… personal fate. …” ? individualized experience?
97
“… The progressive father is a most unsuitable enemy and a most unsuitable “ideal” — but so is any father who no longer shapes the child’s economic, emotional, and intellectual future. …”
20210619
98
“… a system of objective administration, …”
The Parmenides
99
“… The aggressive impulse plunges into a void — or rather the hate encounters smiling colleagues, busy competitors, obedient officials, helpful social workers who are all doing their duty and who are all innocent victims. …”
melancholia
Depression is a sharp edge, a corner, where the charge of guilt builds and builds until the moment it approaches a another conductor of melancholia. If the buildup continues unabated, the potential arc, on the scale of the individual, will be catastrophic.
*? “… . The extent of these resources can be defined by the level of fulfilled human freedom attainable through truly rational use of the productive capacity. …”
100
baubles
101
this may be a part of this
103
“… Ondine …” see Gene Wolfe’s Urth series
“… The human existence in this world is mere stuff, matter, material, which does not have the principle of its movement in itself. …” Is this what I mean when I believe everything is real? {I think I mean something less qualified than this e. g. humans are stuff.}
104
? “… The individual does not really know what is going on; the … machine of education and entertainment …” (exactly ? :) )
Aldous Huxley Brave New World (thesis)
Zur Kritik des Hedonismus, Herbert Marcuse
105
“… express without compromise the fears and hopes of humanity …” is there a contradiction here? How do we trust that it is the individual and not the culture? (They are inseparable and trust is another object we can choose to posess} -> trust as a commodity -> safety
“… cathexis. …” holding; retention
“… scarcity, …” It seems like scarcity would encourage cathexis.
106
“… the historical process … institutions … individuals. …” History is that of institutions, not individuals. Influence of statistics on this conception of history.
Relationship to Benjamin’s On the Concept of History
107
“… life and death — …”
the beginning of ownership and relationship to consent
108
“… . Eros creates culture in his struggle against the death instinct: …” perpetuation of historical gender markers
109
“… The manifold forms of regression are unconscious protest against the insufficiency of civilization: …” What counts as regression? to have already been there — yet we continue to move — the maze has many atria. The maze had many atria.
20210620
110
Each human a many tentacled thread of possibility. A cloud of interaction.
“… had to be fought, conquered, and even violated — …” e e cummings — o sweet spontaneous …
“… conquest of external nature, …” conquest begins through categories; Amerigo Vespucci
“… Gaston Bachelard, …” appears in Benjamin V4
20210623
111
“… . And this idea of reason becomes increasingly antagonistic to those faculties and attitudes which are receptive rather than productive, …” receptive or productive
receptive
productive
112
“… . The Logos of gratification contradicts the Logos of alienation: the effort to harmonize the two animates the inner history of Western metaphysics. …”
gratification
alienation
113
“… . But now philosophy comprehends the concrete historical ground on which the edifice of reason is erected. …” but the historical ground is porous
“… The Phenomenology of the Spirit unfolds the structure of reason as the structure of domination — and as the overcoming of domination. …”
“… conquers …” observation as conquering or observation as …
114
the most prevalent question of life is death
115
domination is dialectic in nature.
“… . The ontological climate which prevails at the end of the Phenomenology is the very opposite of the Promethean dynamic: …” (which are not?) metaphorical philosophy
“… … a mutual recognition which is Absolute Spirit. “ subsumption by the universal essence — it’s just so fucking vast!
117
“… Remembrance, which has preserved everything that was, is the inner and the actually higher form of the substance.” …” Proust
118
“… . Philosophy could conceive of such a state only as that of pure thought. …” philosopher kings
“…: philosophy survives as a special (and not very vital) function in the academic establishment. …”
20210624
119
Caught up in the who is the who asking the what of whom?
absolute negation, of all, including the desire for others to self-negate to bring about a communal Nirvana [¿sic?]
120
“…, progress became … progressive repression. …” progress is of many forms — mostly it is change
121
“… Nietzsche exposes the gigantic fallacy on which Western philosophy and morality were built — namely, the transformation of facts into essences, of historical into metaphysical conditions. …”
“… Only the higher values are eternal, and therefore really real: the inner man, faith, and love which does not ask and does not desire. Nietzsche’s attempt to uncover the historical roots of these transformations elucidates their twofold function: to pacify, compensate, and justify the underprivileged of the earth, and to protect those who made and left them underprivileged. …”
“… productive repression … efficacy [at what?]. …”
122
“… The struggle against time …: the tyranny of becoming over being …”
The unsuicide, when every moment feels the possibility, and yet now relinquishes it.
“… . Nietzsche’s … [hypothetical]”
“…; round each Here turns the sphere of There. …” Gene Wolfe, Book of the New Sun; etc.; an infinity without beginning or end might not be differentiable from an eternally occurring set of systems. The likelihood of anyone being in a loop is minimal, but not zero. If finite loops are less likely.
“… nous theos, … absolute idea, … eternal return … erotic attitude … necessity and fulfillment coincide. …” conceptualisation of necessity and fulfillment in humanity
123
Bizarre — similar to all or nothing (Hegel’s synth).
124
“… The two antagonistic conceptions of time outlined here are discussed by Mircea Eliade in his book The Myth of the Eternal Return (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1955). He contrasts the “cyclical” with the “linear” notion of time, the former characteristic of “traditional” (predominantly primitive) civilizations, the latter of “modern man.” …” That concepts can have hierarchical variety.
124–125
“… essence of being, … Eros — … Logos. …”
125
parameter = Greek → Athenian → through Christianity (for the U. S.)
125–126
“…early stage of Plato’s philosophy, which conceived of culture not as the repressive sublimation but as the free self-development of Eros. …” I think Popper disagreed, The Open Society and Its Enemies — the tyranny of philosopher kings.
129
“… -p-r-o-g-r-e-s-s-[changes]-o-f-[occurring to]-W-e-s-t-e-r-n-[human] civilization. …” parameters
130
“… (2) The representative philosophy of Western civilization has developed a concept of reason which contains the domineering features of the performance principle. However, the same philosophy ends in the vision of a higher form of reason which is the very negation of these features — namely, receptivity, contemplation, enjoyment. …”
nature as momentary object
131
“… If sexuality is in its very essence antisocial and asocial, …” ? Western? Protestant? Global? Sick?
-> only inherent in reproductive life → energy inherent is overwhelming
“… performance principle. …” ?; adaptation?
reproduction is energy — therefore resource heavy (status quo as reproduction)
132
“… reality principle … pleasure principle — …” Do they conflict?
“… conflict [?]…”
The Matrix, Wachowski sisters (сестра)
“… . The struggle for existence necessitates the repressive modification of the instincts chiefly because of the lack of sufficient means and resources for integral, painless and toilless gratification of instinctual needs. …” What is perpetual gratification?
“… the necessity …” a possibility; the possibility; a necessity;
133
“… [different (]civilized[)]…”— (human) trace civil
2 See page 37 above.
134
“… his -t-h-e-i-n-h-i-b-i-t-i-o-n-s- …”
135
A state of social reminder.
“… which the young organism strove to relieve by returning to the inanimate condition. …” or a strong “tension” … strove to relieve by adapting inanimate conditions to other inanimate conditions (reason, ideology, memory, instinct) — from biology → from chemistry → from physics → from …
“… . At the early stage of organic life, the road to the previous states of inorganic existence was probably very short, and dying very easy; but gradually “external influences” lengthened this road and compelled the organism to take ever longer and more complicated “detours to death.” …” metaphor; The Way, Lao Tzu
136
“… a … -t-h-e- [a] … -t-h-e- [a] … -t-h-e- … [possible] …”
“… less “satisfactory,” more painful *different* …”
139
“… The extent to which the basis of civilization has changed (while its principle has been retained) can be illustrated by the fact that the difference between the beginnings of civilization and its present stage seems infinitely greater than the difference between the beginnings of civilization and the preceding stage, where the “nature” of the instincts was acquired. …” Human behaviors compared across time
140
“… unconscious …” irrational or deep ratiocination (time-less)
“… phantasy-making … game …” efficiency (broken by) …”
141
“… . Thus conditioned, this part of the mind obtains the monopoly of interpreting, manipulating, and altering reality — of governing remembrance and oblivion, even of defining what reality is and how it should be used and altered. …” e e cummings “Spring … prurient philosophers …” also Proust
“… . The other part of the mental apparatus remains free from the control of the reality principle — at the price of becoming powerless, inconsequential, unrealistic. …” if a thing is organized it can be reorganized, but reorganization is a choice between outliers of the status quo (or at least high σ events).
142
“… . Reason prevails: it becomes unpleasant but useful and correct; …” Reason becomes more abstract. We no longer reason for food, shelter, and water. We reason for things that may or may not hurt when we are struck by them; and time plays a more arbitrary part.
“Reason in this sense is not identical with the rational faculty (intellect) of traditional theoretical psychology. The term here designates that part of the mind which is brought under the control of the reality principle and includes the organized part of the “vegetative,” “sensitive,” and “appetitive” faculties.” Reason as constructed within a status quo.
143
Generations, Howe and Straub? [Strauss]
“…, phantasy insists that it must and can become real, that behind the illusion lies knowledge. …”
144
Dhalgren
Proust
145
“… “Das Wort entschlief, als jene Welt erwachte.” …” < — translate
146
“… lost unity … universal … particular …” Each its own part of a larger set so the ‘individual part of’ is distinct from the ‘whole’ — the container for these objects is equally independent.
148
“… obscurantistic and reactionary …” Jung
149
“…” But when they asked, “Cannot the dream also be applied to the solution of the fundamental problems of life?” they went beyond psychoanalysis in demanding that the dream be made into reality without compromising its content. …”
“To reduce imagination to slavery — even if one’s so-called happiness is at stake — means to violate all that one finds in one’s inmost self of ultimate justice. Imagination alone tells me what can be.”
150
“… . But this idea could be formulated without punishment only in the language of art. …” Foucault — art and the panopticon, the geneaology of punishment
“… . If the construction of a nonrepressive instinctual development is oriented, not on the subhistorical past, but on the historical present and mature civilization, the very notion of utopia loses its meaning. …”
“… one hand, [anachronistic?] …”
“… “castrophe” … — “ definition? ca- — ?, -strophe — turn; bend; twist
“… beginning of civilization, [?]…” instead of a pool a geyser
151
the end of scarcity {former reader’s note}; a scarcity of scarcity :) when scarcity is in demand (now? death-obsession.)
“…: many would have to give up manipulated comforts if all were to live a human life. Moreover, …” pre-trade agreements — forms of nationalist fervor.
152
“… toil — … alienated labor …” relationship of this concept to Christianity
153
“… . The definition of the standard of living in terms of automobiles, television sets, airplanes, and tractors is that of the performance principle itself. …”
154
“… Freud answers in the affirmative. …” then how did we get where we are today? (Maybe we don’t really want to be here?)
“… Even under optimum conditions of a rational organization of society, the gratification of human needs would require labor, and this fact alone would enforce quantitative and qualitative instinctual restraint, and thereby numerous social taboos. No matter how rich, civilization depends on steady and methodical work, and thus on unpleasurable delay in satisfaction. …” How do casinos fit into this? Encouragement of delayed gratification (potentially infinitely delayed).
156
“… . No matter how justly and rationally the material production may be organized, it can never be a realm of freedom and gratification; but it can release time and energy for the free play of human faculties outside the realm of alienated labor. …” Can it not be part of that play? Unalienating flow?
“… It is the sphere outside labor which defines freedom and fulfillment, …”
159
“… Reason is the rationality of the performance principle. …”
“… reason and suppression: …”
“… sermon or … obscenity. …”
“… New York Joint Legislative Committee on Comic Books …” seems like a strange use of humanity
161
Piaget, Educationalists
“… . And here at the outset we are confronted with the fact that the predominant culture-hero is the trickster and (suffering) rebel against the gods, who creates culture at the price of perpetual pain. …” Loki; Coyote; Ananzi —
163
“… Thule; …” define — a legendary northern island
164
“… “Admire in Narcissus the eternal return toward the mirror of the water which offers his image to his love, and to his beauty all his knowledge. All my fate is obedience to the force of my love. Body, I surrender to your sole power; the tranquil water awaits me where I extend my arms: I do not resist this pure madness. What, O my Beauty, can I do that thou dost not will?” …” parameter; self — any deviation is erased from existence
165
response of ecology
166
“… telos …” assumption of an end; does an end negate a beginning (when forgotten?)
“… . The world of nature is a world of oppression, cruelty, and pain, as is the human world; like the latter, it awaits its liberation. …” Would we obsess about one or the other?
167
“… . (He does not know that the image he admires is his own.) …” distance between self and self as object
169
“… “The Delay of the Machine Age,” Hanns Sachs …”
172
“…, the realm of aesthetics is essentially “unrealistic”: … ineffective in the reality. …” concept of gravity — permeating the universe and electrodynamics acting locally.
privilege aesthetic privilege; efficient generality
173
“… aesthetic was fixed: …” the fixing of terms; static philosophy (a geocentric model [metaphor]— hyperbolas an unfortunate artefact; unexplained; inefficient — but they give energy to other space/while removing energy from others)
“… moral laws … laws of causality. …”
“…; an intermediary dimension must exist in which the two meet. …” Zeno/Hegel — synthesis is halfway
“… . A third …” Why not a nth?
175
possibly feeding racist notions of civilization
176
“… . The next step was to eliminate the distortion of the aesthetic attitude into the unreal atmosphere of the museum or of Bohemia. …” areas of contrivance, construction, abstraction
177
“…, Schiller derived from Kant’s conception the notion of a new mode of civilization. …” Is this mentioned in Benjamin?
179
a smoothing function
186
“…” only a new mode of civilization can heal it. …” Woman on the Edge of Time, Marge Piercy
“… . The wound …” Could it also be that we are attempting to polarize what is not fundamentally polar?
187
“… . Schiller defines this third mediating impulse as the play impulse, its objective as beauty and its goal as freedom. …”
“… man from inhuman …” What humans do is necessarily human.
188
“… humane …” definition
191
“… “ Order is freedom only if it is founded on and sustained by the free gratification of the individuals. …” If one suffers [but what is this?] we are not free.
193
“… “display” …” patronage — now by the people — then by the wealthy
195
“… defined by standards of rationality rather than freedom — …” human activity — play; inhuman activity — necessary labor; unneccesary labor is beyond inhuman (dehumanizing)
201
“… . No longer used as a fulltime instrument of labor, the body would be resexualized. The regression involved in this spread of the libido would first manifest itself in a reactivation of all erotogenic zones and, consequently, in a resurgence of pregenital polymorphous sexuality and in a decline of genital supremacy. The body in its entirety would become an object of cathexis, a thing to be enjoyed — an instrument of pleasure. This change in the value and scope of libidinal relations would lead to a disintegration of the institutions in which the private interpersonal relations have been organized, particularly the monogamic and patriarchal family. …” Does this come up in Gender Trouble, Judith Butler?
203
“… monogamic genital supremacy. …”
“… a happiness that has always been the repressed promise of a better future. …”
213
“… evaporates. …” not sublimates? :)
215
“… an aim in itself, …” an uncontaining container
216
These two feed one another and miss the picture of civilization’s insiders. Mead’s view is a clarifying view of her own culture — rooted in herself and conspired with experience. The Arapesh, whoever they may be, if they have said anything have said little to Mead and only in whispers amongst themselves.
217
“… Fourier’s …” I think this is the one in Benjamin
“… If “industry is the fate assigned to us by the Creator, how can one believe that he wishes to force us into it — that he does not know how to bring to bear some nobler means, some enticement capable of transforming work into pleasure.” …” Another formulation of the problem of a Creator.
218
“… phalanstère …” Yep.
219
“… “mastery instinct. …” relationship to flow?
221
“… Of all things, hard work has become a virtue [Aristotle, Plato, Weirdos] instead of the curse it was always advertised to be by our remote ancestors. … Our children should be prepared to bring their children up so they won’t have to work as a neurotic necessity. The necessity to work is a neurotic symptom. It is a crutch. It is an attempt to make oneself feel valueable even though there is no particular need for one’s working. …”
222
see On Some Motifs in Baudelaire III, Walter Benjami pp. 160–162 (Illuminations)
“… Under non-repressive conditions, sexuality tends to “grow into” Eros — that is to say, toward self-sublimation in lasting and expanding relations (including work relations) which serve to intensify and enlarge instinctual gratification. …” human sexuality — ecological
“… . To be sure, the scarcity and poverty prevalent in the world could be sufficiently mastered to permit the ascendancy of universal freedom, but this master seems to be self-propelling — perpetual labor. …” human creation of flow; .lliw decrof fo noitacilpmi <-creation —> allow it to happen
“… All the technological progress, the conquest of nature, the rationalization of man and society have not eliminated and cannot eliminate the necessity of alienated labor, the necessity of working mechanically, unpleasurably, in a manner that does not represent individual self-realization. …” This makes no sense.
223
“… lasting gratification …” an oxymoron? (permanent denouement; afflicted by an unending climax;)
224
“… the “need” to … any time at its will, repression of this “need” is not repressive of human potentialities. …” this still suffers from arbitrary construction — that road is there because …
225
“… “general will” …” statistical
“… . However, the question remains: how can civilization freely generate freedom, when unfreedom has become part and parcel of the mental apparatus? …” What is the statistical will?
226
“…” results in lack of full satisfaction: …” Maybe just in the realization that it’s just another thing.
“… . Some obstacle is necessary to swell …”
231
“… . The brute fact of death denies once and for all the reality of a non-repressive existence. …” Ah, but death is the ultimate freedom. A oneness with everything that is difficult.
“… . The flux of time is society’s most natural ally in maintaining law and order, conformity, and the institutions that relegate freedom to a perpetual utopia; the flux of time helps men to forget what was and what can be: it makes them oblivious to the better past and the better future. …” In this way time maintains nothing. Humans maintain their structures, by not changing them, holding them fast, rebuilding them when they collapse.
232
“… . Like the ability to forget, the ability to remember is a product of civilization — perhaps its oldest and most fundamental psychological achievement. …” Civilization is the ability to remember.
234
“…: it tends toward that state of “constant gratification” where no tension is felt — a state without want. …” a static
236
“… . It takes all the institutions and values of a repressive order to pacify the bad conscience of this guilt. …”
238
zeitgeist
240
“… idealistic ethics and religion; …” mythology
242
“… . Anxiety, love, confidence, even the will to freedom and solidarity with the group to which one belongs — all come to serve the economically structured relationships of domination and subordination. …”
245
“…: in a repressive society, individual happiness and productive development are in contradiction to society; if they are defined as values to be realized within this society, they become themselves repressive. …”
“…: while psychoanalytic theory recognizes that the sickness of the individual is ultimately caused and sustained by the sickness of his civilization, psychoanalytic therapy aims at curing the individual so that he can continue to function as part of a sick civilization without surrendering to it altogether. …” Is this a nuanced pharmakon?
248
ecology
249
“… society “is … a growing changing, developing network of interpersonal experiences and behavior.” …”
251
dialectic?
252
“… Again, the obvious (“diversity of personalities”; analysis as an interpersonal process”), because it is not comprehended but merely stated and used, becomes a half-truth which is false since the missing half changes the content of the obvious fact. …” use of a tool; examination of a tool; reflection upon a tool
254
“… Psychoanalysis elucidates the universal in the individual experience. …” Different than an archetype? (Reoccurrence?) Pattern. Structure. How are these different and the same?
257
“… Behind all the differences among the historical forms of society, Freud saw the basic inhumanity common to all of them, and the repressive controls which perpetuate, in the instinctual structure itself, the domination of man by man. …” a legacy of the species
258
“…” Now it is precisely this goal which is essentially unattainable — not because of limitations in the psychoanalytic techniques but because the established civilization itself, in its very structure, denies it. …” relationship between individuality, personality, and identity; relation to social structure
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Either one defines “personality” and “individuality” in terms of their possibilities within the established form of civilization, in which case their realization is for the vast majority tantamount to successful adjustment. Or one defines them in terms of their transcending content, including their socially denied potentialities beyond (and beneath) their actual existence; in this case, their realization would imply transgression, beyond the established form of civilization, to radically new modes of “personality” and “individuality” incompatible with the prevailing ones.
260
“… esprit de sérieux …” definition
261
“… . “Leadership in building a more constructive society” is to be combined with normal functioning in the established society. ..”
“… the values of productiveness and the “higher self” — … are exactly the values of the criticized culture. …”
268
“…: precisely because man has never come so close to the fulfillment of his hopes, he has never been so strictly restrained from fulfilling them; precisely because we can visualize the universal satisfaction of individual needs, the strongest obstacles are placed in the way of such satisfaction. …”
