Some notes by NF
Texts discussed:
Althusser. Reading Capital. The chapters “Marxism is not Historicism”
and “Marx’s Immense Theoretical Revolution”
——— For Marx. The chapters “Introduction”
and the Appendix to “Contradiction and Overdetermination”
Here are some notes and thoughts I have following this meeting. It’s not meant as any kind of official summary or protocol – I didn’t take any notes during the session, and I’m sure I’m leaving out some points that we’ve discussed. So please regard this as very informal notes from my limited perspective.
First, I have to say I think we had a very good meeting, and I’m really looking forward to the next one. Speaking for myself, it helped me clarify several points about Althusser, and to focus on several key questions – even if we weren’t able to come up with answers. Second, some general comments on Althusser. Agree with him or not, the guy’s extremely sharp and analytic, and my hat’s off to him for that. He alone is enough to dispel the bad rap about “French obscurantism”. He goes to such pain to define every single concept it’s really admirable. Not saying it’s all perfectly clear to me, but you’ve got to admire the effort. See his comments on the (excellent) glossary by the translator Ben Brewster, for example. Another admirable trait: his rare intellectual honesty. How many authors do you know who are willing to say “I got this and that point wrong in my previous work and I hope I’ve been able to correct it here”? Kudos to Louis.
Let me start with some responses to the questions Andy sent via email and which we didn’t have time to address. I’ll try to be brief. First, Andy’s third question, which I’m rephrasing here: how is Althusser ultimately different from Sartre’s position, which basically says “Marxism, yes, but more complex”? Is there really a substantial difference between them? —Don’t have a definite answer to this one, but I’d like to suggest the following: it does seem to me that Sartre insists on what we might call a “description from a first-person perspective” (and here we might think about his phenomenological background), whereas Althusser, in a more traditional Marxist vein, wants a “third-person” or “system” perspective. But then again, perahaps I’m taking this too far. For instance, what would I say about Althusser’s policeman example in the Ideology article – isn’t that a first-person description as well (what happens to someone when they hear “hey you!”)?
Another related point to this question, which we didn’t really develop, is Althusser’s discussion of Sartre in the last part of the Appendix to “Contradiction and Overdetermination”. That’s where he says that Sartre is basically comitting the same mistake as Engels. Here’s my understanding of this. The Engels/Sartre approach, says Althusser, aims to explain how the sum total (the agregate) of individual activities results not in chaos but in some coherent and relatively structured social reality. Put differently, how do we start from particular wills, which are apparently free, and end up with a social system in which my personal will isn’t really expressed, and where I’m not really free. The problem with this question, says Althusser, is that it assumes that the “basic position” is one of free individuals. In other words, in Sartre’s model, it is as if we are born free and then cast into a world of social patterns that shape us, with greater or lesser degree of success (usually greater). But in fact, says Althusser, we are always-already shaped by those structures and ideologies. And the prime example (which I’m pretty sure he borrows from Lacan) is that even before we are born our parents – and this itself is already not their decision but a social structure – give us a name etc.
Now to the question what does Althusser mean by “determination of the economy in the last instance”. Again, it’s not entirely clear to me, nor am I sure that Althusser himself gives a definite answer. Here’s my best shot. If you try to take every single social phenomena and trace it to the economic sphere, namely to means of producsion and to relations of production – that won’t work. Certainly not with cultural phenomena. What that means is that society is composed of multiple spheres or sub-systems (not Althusser’s term), such as law, politics, art, the academy, etc. Now, each such sphere does have a relative “degree of freedom”, which gives it some “independence” from the economic infrastructure. Again, it’s not all one-to-one determination by the economy. And yet, the general structure of those sub-systems – say modern law, modern art, etc. – is determined by the economic sphere – say capitalism. In other words, if that makes sense at all: the economic sphere gives you the general “borders” or “parameters” of the other spheres, on the one hand; and yet, on the other hand, within thouse boundaries each sphere enjoys a relative degree of freedom. So the economic determination is “global” and not so much in the finer details. — What’s the ultimate test of that? Well, I’m not sure what Althusser might say, but perhaps something like this (and here I’m influenced by Zizek): You can go ahead and write a book that’s very critical of capitalism. Why? Because there’s a high degree of freedom in the cultural sphere, at least in first-world liberal societies. But try and really threaten capitalism’s economic dominance, and then you’ll be stopped.
OK. This is getting kind of long. Let me try and be brief with the following points that came up in the meeting
- His take on science: very interestingly, he says science is not part of the superstructure, namely it’s not determined by the economic base-structure. Science has a history of its own. Science is either true or not true, and can be appreciated as such. —[BTW, he refers here to Stalin’s (!) article on language. Anyone interested in picking up that ball? I know Zizek has a text about it as well. ]
- His references to Lenin: those seem to betray something important about his stand, which might also be an important difference from Sartre. Like Lenin, he wants an intellectual avant-garde that would bring the message to the masses. Realizing the true form of oppression and the right way to resist it (but is there one?) is not going to just “emerge” from people’s living experience. And thus, if someone (Sartre?) thinks their job is to just lend a voice to the miseries and cries of the wretched of the earth, they are wrong – the job is to lend them a theory.
- “The authorless theater” – a fascinating metaphor, I think, and one that seems to be aimed right at Sartre. Ramona very pointedly commented that the aim is not just intellectual but also very ad-hominem, as if to say: “those pretend-intellectuals who think they can elaborate theory with theatrical works”. This is one point I’d love to develop next time. — This term comes up in “Marx’s immense Theoretical Revolution”, the end of the second-from-last paragraph. Now, I’m pretty sure I saw it in one of the other text’s we’ve read, but I haven’t been able to locate it.
- Finally, a small one for Andy: you asked me where does he mention the term “symptomatic reading”. Check out the index to RC under “reading, symptomatic”. One place we had in our reading is the last paragraph of “Marxism is not Historicism”, where I think he explains it rather well (and also explicitly compares it to Lacan’s reading of Freud).
Best,
NF
