ArhivaApril 2013

Ljubodrag Simonović: Destruction of the body

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Ljubodrag Simonović
E-mail: comrade@orion.rs
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DESTRUCTION OF THE BODY

The body is the basic vessel of human existence in the world and man’s basic connection to the world. It is not a natural given or a phenomenon sui generis. It is rather the product of the historical development of society. Each civilization creates a specific body and a specific relation to the body and, thus, a specific man. Even in Ancient Greece, people realized that the production of a particular body also implies the production of a particular type of man (masters and slaves). Class and racial physiognomic is given great importance in bourgeois anthropology and concentrated on particularly by bourgeois Hellenic scholars who idealized Ancient Greece. At the same time, man does not experience his body immediately but through a concrete totality of the epoch in which he lives and the prevailing ideological “model” of the body, as a concrete human (social) being.

The answer to the question of what is the human body in the contemporary world can be reached only in the context of the prevailing tendency of capitalist development. Capitalism produces an individual who is in functional unity with it and who enables its development, above all, by producing an appropriate body. The prevailing relation to the body is mediated by “technical civilization”. In other words, the body is reduced to being a peculiar machine, while bodily movement is reduced to the mechanics of motion. Technical functionality and efficiency become the basic features of the capitalist body. Basically, a dominant instrumental and exploitative relation to nature is fundamental to the relation to the human body. Rather than being a harmonious part of the living environment that, as such, should be respected, the body is reduced to being the object of transformation and an instrument for the attainment of inhuman goals. In “consumer society”, consumption has become the dominant form of bodily activity. The body has become part of the consumer way of life, and it responds to the demands of consumer civilization. The relation to the body has an instrumental character: it ceases to be an integral part of the human being and becomes a tool for the reproduction of the ruling order. The body is completely commercialized as the “greatest” achievement of the capitalist degeneration of man. Putatively, man is the “owner” of his body. In reality, he treats his body in the same way capitalism treats him as a man: by dehumanizing man, capitalism dehumanized man’s relation to his own body. It is a capitalistically created narcissism with an instrumental, destructive and spectacular nature.

The capitalist totalization of the world involves the capitalist totalization of the body, its deformation and the creation of a chronically ill man. The prevailing rhythm is that of capitalist reproduction, which destroys the biological rhythm of life – without which there is no healthy man. Not only is man guided by consumption as his moral challenge, but his body cannot survive without an increasing number of devices and substances, along with an artificial environment. Man’s survival is more and more mediated by artificial means that turn him into an invalid. The body has lost its natural needs: it can no longer process natural food, and it lives on and through medication. Man’s entire life is in “treatment”, meant ultimately to enable him to carry on in the functional harmony with the ruling order. The devolution of the body clearly shows that a developing “standard of consumption” brings on an erosion of the living standard. Labor, livelihood, movement, bio-rhythms, diet, sleep, living space as a modern ghetto (cities), air, water, food, tobacco, drugs, sugary beverages (including alcohol), ways of life that destroy man’s natural being, his night life, forced pace and ways of eating – almost all life-styles lead to man’s degeneration. Cholesterol, cellulite, diabetes, cancer, coronary diseases, neurasthenia, depression, AIDS, etc., are not “modern diseases”, but are rather a capitalist form of man’s physical and mental degeneration. It is about man’s transformation by capitalism, which deprives him of his natural and human life-creating quality and turns him into a plastic and technological “being”. At the same time, rather than being naturally conditioned and having a natural character, an increasing number of potential diseases are the products of laboratories and have a genocidal and for-profit character. Capitalism produces diseases that are then “cured” through man’s transformation into a profit-generating patient, that is, a chronic patient. The propaganda machine and his social position determine the “physical needs” of contemporary man. Man, who constantly devours larger and larger amounts of lower and lower quality food, is the most important strategic target of the food industry. This industry is producing a more and more gravely sick man, who is, of course, “taken in charge” by the medical and pharmaceutical industry. The consumption of larger and larger quantities of food does not reflect a need of the body; it is intended to compensate for a frustrated humanity. The same goes for smoking, drug taking, alcoholism, consumer physical exercise like aerobics, body-building and similar activities. Capitalism turns the consequences of the destruction of man and nature into the sources of profit and invents increasingly dangerous and destructive mechanisms. The human body becomes a universal destructive machine and a universal waste bin meant to swallow the ever-more poisonous products of capitalist civilization. At the same time, existential anxiety, daily humiliations, loneliness and hopelessness affect man’s mental health and further exacerbate his physical degeneration.

As part of the capitalistically degenerated world, man’s body has become the vehicle for the destruction of naturality and humanity and, as such, the enemy of nature and man. Capitalism has transformed man into a destructive labor force and, at the same time, into a consumer set to devour the greatest number of products in the least possible time. The nature of these commodities, the use-value of which continually decreases from the perspective of man as a biological and human being, and the nature of man’s relationship to these goods and services, which is nothing more than to consume them, inevitably result in man’s degeneration as a biological and human being. The consumer way of life produces a denaturalized and dehumanized consumer body and a consumer mentality, and, ultimately, a consumer view of the world and a consumer (destructive) imagination. The constant focusing on devouring food distracts the mind from crucial existential and essential issues and affects visionary consciousness. Dreams about food (just like dreams about luxury cars, swimming pools, houses, yachts… – which constantly feed the capitalist value horizon manifested by an increasingly aggressive entertainment industry) replace dreams about the world of free people. At the same time, the forms of escapism created by the entertainment industry destroy man’s need for intellectual activities. Capitalism mentally mutilates people by destroying  their need for science, philosophy, poetry, music, enlightened conversation… There exists but one area of interest: money and the political power it buys, concerns which ultimately serve to rationalize the existing order that enables the accumulation of wealth through the plundering of workers and the destruction of the environment.

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Ljubodrag Simonović: Humanism – naturalism

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Ljubodrag Simonović
E-mail: comrade@orion.rs
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“HUMANISM – NATURALISM”

            Marx’s idea of “humanism-naturalism” from the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts indicates the possibility of overcoming the antagonism between nature and man through their mutual cooperation resulting in a simultaneous fulfillment of both man’s and nature’s emancipatory potential. Marx: “Communism as the positive transcendence of private property as human self-estrangement and, therefore, as man’s complete atonement as a social (i.e., human) being – a reunion accomplished consciously and embracing the entire wealth of previous development. Thus communism, as fully developed naturalism, is humanism, and as fully developed humanism, is naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the antagonism between man and nature and between man and man – the true resolution of the tension between existence and essence, between objectification and self-affirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. Communism is the riddle of History solved, and it knows itself to be this resolution.”

            The idea of  “humanism-naturalism”, as a concrete historical concept and not as an ideal that can only be dreamed of, indicates that Marx does not consider a future relative to capitalism as a totalitarian destructive order. Marx’s “humanism-naturalism” does not have a concrete historical dimension, but rather is based on the abstract determination of the essence of nature and man. “Humanism-naturalism” is projected into a future space where man and nature appear on a mythological level and correspond to their idealized concepts. For Marx, man’s liberation from his enslavement to nature and the possibility of nature’s humanization represent the resolution of their antagonistic relation. It is, however, based on the capitalist mode of development of the productive forces, a process that does not promote man’s liberation from nature, but rather makes him more dependent on it. According to Marx, the domination of nature and its exploitation, through technology, is the domination and exploitation of man. Indeed, capitalist technology consists of natural forces turned by capitalism into an anti-natural power. Capitalism “masters” nature by destroying it and thus creates man’s increasingly dangerous enemy. Only relative to the destructive tendencies of capitalist development can Marx’s idea of “humanism-naturalism” take on a concrete historical, critical and visionary meaning.

            On man’s relation to nature, Marx writes in Capital: “By acting on the external world and changing it, man at the same time changes his own nature.“ It follows that man’s relation to nature conditions man’s nature. Marx based his thesis on the view that, by transforming nature into useful objects, man conquers natural forces and, thus, develops his own creative powers. The transformation of nature has a libertarian and existential character. Following the same principle, if man transforms nature by destroying it, he simultaneously destroys himself as a natural and human being and becomes a destructive mechanism. Because of capitalistically degenerated labor, man does not develop his universal creative powers but, instead, is crippled as a natural, creative and social being and reduced to being a mechanical part of working processes – to being a destructive specialty-idiot. At the same time, capitalism, through the “consumer” way of life, has turned even non-work time into time for capitalist reproduction, that is, into time for the (self)destruction of man and nature. In capitalism, however, the relation to nature only appears to be mediated by human practice. Since man is instrumentalized, from his earliest youth, by a capitalistically conditioned way of life, human practice is but one of the manifestations of capitalism’s relation to nature and essentially corresponds to capitalism’s destructive character. At the same time, this destructive relation to nature conditions man’s relation to both society and the future, as well as man’s relation to himself as a natural and human being. Only if man, as an emancipated natural being, has a humanizing relation to nature, can he have a humanizing relation to his own body as his immediate nature and to himself as a human being.

             As for the glorification of nature, in One-Dimensional Man, Marcuse comes to the following conclusion: “All joy and all happiness derive from the ability to transcend Nature – a transcendence in which the mastery of Nature is itself subordinated to the liberation and pacification of existence. (…) Glorification of the natural is part of the ideology that protects an unnatural society in its struggle against liberation. (…) Civilization produces the means for freeing Nature from its own brutality, its own insufficiency, its own blindness, by virtue of the cognitive and transforming power of Reason. And Reason can fulfill this function only as post-technological rationality, in which technics is itself the instrumentality of pacification, organon of the ‘art of life’. The function of Reason then converges with the function of Art.“ “The brutality” of nature has an existential and life-generating character, unlike capitalist brutality, which has a destructive character and conditions man’s anthropological image: instead of being a “beast”, man has become a “(self)destructive” being. In capitalism, “nature ceases to be merely nature” by being deprived of its life-creating quality and reduced to the object of exploitation and destruction. In sport, which is a mirror of the true image of capitalism, nature does not free itself from its insufficiencies and brutality, but rather becomes the object of exploitation and destruction. In sport, the body, as man’s immediate nature, becomes the opponent who must be conquered and used for the attainment of inhuman ends. Man does not free himself in sport from natural determinism; he rather “frees” himself from life.

             Marcuse overlooks the fact that nature itself is humanizing. In Emile, Rousseau writes about the “art of living” learned by the child in nature, which “calls him to a human life”. For the North American Chief, life in nature enables the cultivation of the senses and, thus, the development of man’s aesthetical being, whereas the cutting of man’s organic bond with nature leads to a degeneration of the senses and, consequently, of man, himself. He says that the white man cannot hear the life sounds of nature, smell its scents, discern its colors… This is because the capitalist way of life has degenerated his senses and destroyed the need to enjoy the beauty of both nature and life, a pleasure possible only when man is an organic part of nature. Unlike Goethe and Schiller, Marx did not have a romantic relation to nature (for Klopstock, skates are “wings on the feet”, enabling man to fly to the future) and did not attach a particular importance to the aesthetical dimension of nature. Since capitalism, by destroying nature, abolishes natural brutality, it is necessary to fight for nature’s naturalization, for its liberation from the capitalist exploitation and destruction. Natural forces should be transformed into vehicles for nature’s preservation and humanization. Nature’s liberating potential is contained in its life-creating quality – in the creation of new forms of life. Man is by nature a life-creating being, who can be humanized only if his life-creating quality is recognized as an integral part of nature. Humanization becomes the development (overcoming) of the original naturality, and not its subordination to a rational pattern, to the model of the “humanized” and the like. Only as an emancipated natural being can man truly experience the fullness of his human being. Instead of being a form through which nature can be overcome by the “spirit”, which means to attain a notion of itself and relate to itself, man should overcome his original natural life-creating quality through the development of his creative being, meaning that it should become the basis for the totalization of the world. It is about the transformation of the principle of fecundity into the life-creating principle and the life-creating principle into the universal creative principle.

             As far as the relation between reason and nature is concerned, Marcuse writes about this in One-Dimensional Man in the context of his discussion of Hegel’s concept of freedom, with respect to which Marx develops his emancipatory thought. Marcuse: “Hegel’s concept of freedom presupposes consciousness throughout (in Hegel’s terminology: self-consciousness). Consequently, the ‘realization’ of Nature is not, and never can be, Nature’s own work: But inasmuch as Nature is in itself negative (i.e., wanting in its own existence), the historical transformation of Nature by Man is, as the overcoming of this negativity, the liberation of Nature. Or, in Hegel’s words, Nature is in its essence non-natural-‘Geist’.” And he continues: “History is the negation of Nature. What is only natural is overcome and recreated by the power of Reason. The metaphysical notion that Nature comes to itself in history points to the unconquered limits of Reason. It claims them as historical limits – as a task yet to be accomplished or, rather, yet to be undertaken. Nature is in itself a rational, legitimate object of science, thus it is the legitimate object not only of Reason as power, but also of Reason as freedom; not only of domination, but also of liberation. With the emergence of man as the animal rationale – capable of transforming Nature in accordance with the faculties of the mind and the capacities of matter – the merely natural, as the sub-rational, assumes negative status. It becomes a realm to be comprehended and organized by Reason.”
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Ljubodrag Simonović: Bourgeoisie and proletariat

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Ljubodrag Simonović
e-mail: comrade@orion.rs
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BOURGEOISIE AND PROLETARIAT

             One of the most important ideas from the Manifesto of the Communist Party called into question by contemporary capitalism is that of capitalism’s being a “revolutionary“ order and, consequently, the bourgeoisie’s being is a “revolutionary“ class. According to Marx, the main historical “task“ of the bourgeoisie is to enable man to gain control over natural laws and thereby free himself from his dependency on nature and exhausting physical labor, so as to enable him to develop his universal creative powers. The “revolutionary role“ of the bourgeoisie is to create conditions for a “leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom“ (Engels). This is the main reason why Marx attaches primary importance to the development of productive forces. At the same time, the bourgeoisie is an exploiting class that becomes reactionary when capitalist private ownership starts to hinder the development of the productive forces. That is the right moment for a socialist revolution.

            For Marx, the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat is dialectical. The bourgeoisie produces the proletariat as its antipode: the nature of the bourgeoisie conditions the nature of the proletariat. According to Marx, the revolutionary character of capitalism, which, above all, strives for the abolishment of man’s dependency on nature through the capitalist development of productive forces, offers workers the possibility of a revolutionary transformation of society. The conquered natural elements open the possibility of establishing a form of labor that will enable man to realize his creative powers and a social order that will put an end to man’s exploitation by others. For Marx, the most important task of the working class is to liberate humankind from inhuman living conditions and the class order. It is clearly stated in Marx’s “categorical imperative”: “To overthrow all those conditions in which man is an abased, enslaved, abandoned, contemptible being…”  In The Holy Family, Marx writes: “When socialist writers ascribe this historic role to the proletariat, it is not, as critical criticism would have one think, because they consider the proletarians to be gods. Quite the contrary. Since the abstraction of all humanity, even of the semblance of humanity, is practically complete in the fully-formed proletariat; since the conditions of life of the proletariat sum up all the conditions of life of society today in their most inhuman and acute form; since man has lost himself in the proletariat, yet at the same time has not only gained theoretical consciousness of that loss, but through the no longer removable, no longer disguisable, absolutely imperative need—the practical expression of necessity—is driven directly to revolt against that inhumanity: it follows that the proletariat can and must free itself. But it cannot free itself without abolishing the conditions of its own life. It cannot abolish the conditions of its own life without abolishing all the inhuman conditions of life of society today which are summed up in its own situation.”

             Marx points out “social” and “historical” causes that provoke workers to initiate the struggle against capitalism. Paramount among these are the immediate existential (economic) threat, the ruthless exploitation, the inhuman working and living conditions that jeopardize workers’ health, the humiliation to which they are regularly subjected… Ecological conditions do not count as the proletariat’s “living conditions”. The proletariat will not be “historically compelled” to stop the destruction of life on the planet and save humankind from obliteration. If Marx had regarded capitalism as an order that threatens nature and man as a human and natural being, then the awareness of the need to preserve life on the planet would have been the basis for shaping the workers’ class consciousness and a signpost in the struggle against capitalism. Marx does not mention capitalism’s destructive relation to nature as a possible precondition for a socialist revolution. His view of capitalism as a “revolutionary order” that marks the end of the “pre-history“ of humankind and the creation of the “material conditions” for a new society (just like Engels’ view that capitalism creates the possibilities for a “leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom”) indicates his relation to capitalism. Marx’s “categorical imperative”, which is the basis for the formation of workers’ class(self)-consciousness and as such is the supreme political principle, does not imply the ecocidal nature of capitalism and does not seek to develop in workers an emancipated (belligerent) ecological consciousness. Marx withheld the most important aspect of the workers’ class-consciousness:  the concept that capitalism is a destructive order and that capitalist class domination has an ecocidal character. According to Marx, capitalism reaches its end primarily by causing the economic crisis that occurs because of the productive relations (private ownership) becoming an obstacle to further growth of the productive forces, and not by the development of any processes that are detrimental to nature and man. The starting point in the struggle against capitalism is not its (potentially) destructive character, because the only force that will bring man to struggle is an immediate threat to his survival. These Marxian views are imbued with political realism. However, Marx’s indication that capitalism exhausts the soil and thus jeopardizes the survival of future generations (humankind) leads to the conclusion that, instead of “waiting” for the productive forces to come into conflict with the productive (proprietary) relations, workers should be moved to start a decisive fight against capitalism by the increasingly dramatic destruction of nature.

             The capitalism’s development as an ecocidal order leads to society’s increasing fragmentation, not only along the lines of wealth but also as to the accessibility to protection against more and more lethal climate changes, the pollution of food, water, air… Class divisions within a society have long been defined by natural living conditions and the possibilities for protection against the consequences of environmental degradation. Those most affected are on the lowest rung of the social ladder and on the margins of “globalization”. Workers and their children are more directly impacted by both the economic crises of capitalism and global ecological degradation. Indeed, in his Early Writings, Marx indicates that contaminated water and air have become the workers’ way of life, but he has in mind the daily existence of workers in factories and mines, as well as in the apartment blocks built in the immediate vicinity of industrial and mining sites, and not the planet-wide ecological pauperism brought about by the obliteration of nature as a life-generating whole and the production of a technical world.
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