wilders en austin.

de omstreden politicus geert wilders veroorlooft zich relatief controversiele opmerkingen met betrekking tot de islamitische nederlander (de kut-marokkaan, de straatterrorist, de drager van een inferieure cultuur, etc). maar ter zelfder tijd rent wilders keer op keer naar de rechtbank wanneer hij bedreigd wordt. hij is voorvechter voor het "vrije woord" en de vrijheid van meningsuiting, die hij zelfs belangrijker schijnt te vinden dan de wet tegen discriminatie. maar aan de andere kant lijkt het hem een goed idee de islam, die naar zijn zeggen oproept tot geweld, te verbieden. wat voor taalbegrip ligt aan de basis van deze schijnbare tegenstrijdigheden?

alles mag gezegd worden, zolang men niet expliciet oproept tot geweld. het systematisch demoniseren van bepaalde bevolkingsgroepen wordt echter niet als oproep tot geweld gerekend. hiermee impliceert wilders een expliciete scheiding tussen het oproepen tot geweld in de zin van commando's, en het bijdragen aan de totstandkoming van voorwaarden die geweld mogelijk maken.

john austin introduceerde een onderscheid tussen twee verschillende typen performatieve taaluitingen. de ene, de illocutionaire taaluiting, valt samen met een handeling; het paradigmatische voorbeeld is de priester die door te zeggen "u bent getrouwd" ook daadwerkelijk een huwelijk voltrekt. de andere, de perlocutionaire taaluiting, is een taaluiting die weliswaar tot een handeling leidt, maar daar niet mee samen valt; een commando is een perlocutionaire taaluiting, maar datzelfde geldt voor bepaalde vormen van hate speech.

problematisch wordt dit onderscheid wanneer we althusser's notie van interpellatie in deze theoretische constellatie integreren. interpellatie duidt op het feit dat onze subjectiviteit ons van buiten opgedrongen wordt; wij worden op een bepaalde manier aangesproken, en de manier waarop we als subject in de wereld vastgepind worden hangt daarmee samen. wanneer ik aangesproken word met "fuck you" zal ik een andere relatie met betrekking tot de sociale realiteit waarin ik me op dat moment bevind innemen dan wanneer een ober me vraagt of ik nog wijn wil.

interpellatie is een illocutionaire taaluiting; de interpellerende taaluiting constitueert het geadresseerde subject, en deze constitutie valt temporeel samen met de taaluiting.

hoewel het voor een rechtbank wellicht anders ligt, lijkt het me op theoretisch vlak zeer moeilijk te beargumenteren dat bepaalde uitingen van de PVV geen hate speech zijn. de interpellatie van een bevolkingsgroep (die wellicht expliciet in zijn heterogeniteit erkend wordt, maar op rhetorisch vlak toch onvoldoende gespecificeerd is om van een werkelijke erkenning van heterogeniteit te kunnen spreken) als "straatterroristen" leidt tot bepaalde effecten voor de constitutie van de subjectiviteit van diegenen die deel hebben aan deze bevolkingsgroep - of dit nu antagonistische, subversieve, of toestemmende effecten zijn.

tegelijkertijd wordt de nederlander voortdurend aangesproken als slachtoffer van de islamisering en de "linkse elite aan de grachtengordel." dit discours gaat er vanuit dat er een "echte nederlander" is, wiens plaats in de symbolische werkelijkheid van de nederlandse cultuur verdrongen is door niet-"echte nederlandse" elementen. (zoals foucault laat zien in "society must be defended" is dit een zeer oude discursieve structuur, die tenminste teruggaat tot de franse historicus boulainvilliers, die de rechten van de franse aristocratie voor de opnieuw opkomende monarchie wilden verdedigen. deze structuur ligt aan de basis van een veelheid aan nationalistische discoursen.) deze "echte nederlander" wordt in zijn slachtofferrol geinterpelleerd, en duidelijk gemaakt wie hem deze rol heeft toebedeeld.

wanneer geert wilders benadrukt dat er een verschil is tussen discriminerende uitingen en het aanzetten tot haat, kent hij het perlocutionaire aspect van taal een overdreven grote werkingskracht toe, terwijl hij de illocutinaire zijde, zoals die in interpellatie verwerkelijkt wordt, en het discursieve geweld (dat op ontologisch vlak natuurlijk niet van lichamelijk geweld te scheiden is) dat daarmee gepaard gaat, niet in beschouwing neemt. uiteraard is dit een retorische techniek om zijn politieke tegenstanders tot stilte te brengen - maar besloten in deze techniek ligt een sterk vereenvoudigd idee van de mens - die blijkbaar niet in staat is een aanzet tot geweld te negeren, maar wel immuun is voor de gewelddadige effecten van interpellatie.

parody of structuralism.

we live our lives beyond the pleasure principle, in full knowledge of the construed nature of the principles that determine whether something gives us pleasure or not. by and large, this knowledge negates the pleasure it takes as its object. (have you ever experienced an orgasm solely by looking at the monitor that reproduces your brain activity, blotting out all subjectivity?) yet we continue, we follow paths of which we know they were laid out in advance - or at least determined by exterior factors - we fall into recurrent patterns, taking the way with the least resistance (the only possible way to take). yes, we have social lives; but not because we like it. (to like something - such a primitive idea!) the only reward for this way of living (for the moment assuming this problematic notion has an objective reality) (which it does not) is our clairvoyance and cynicism (in which we take no pleasure whatsoever) - we are not led by the illusions that guide the others. when i write these lines, i am fully aware of the apparatus that interpellates me, projects me into the author position, which is retroactively constituted as prediscursive, concealing the fact the origin of these words lies elsewhere - further and further back - "until the notion of origin ceases to be pertinent."

to stare this knowledge in the eye, and to continue living - this is our ambiguous accomplishment.

the confusion surrounding democracy.

much may be written about the various meanings of the word democracy. it seems to me this term functions in at least three different semantic fields.

1. democracy as a state form. here, democracy means "rule by the people", and is contrasted to "monarchy", "aristocracy", "oligarchy" and "meritocracy" (there may be more). interestingly, these alternatives are not considered viable these days - the general acceptance of democracy as the best form is even implied by the semantic peculiarity of the word. (the literal english translation of the japanese word for democracy would be "democratism" - and whereas -isms imply the choice between a variety of doctrines, -y's lack this explicit plurality). this normative universality stands at the basis of the second register in which the term operates.

(it needs to be noted that we are not living in a democracy according to the original definition of this state form, in which there was no need for representation. as soon as the inhabitants don't fit into a single room, it is inevitable to turn democracy into representative democracy. we might be living in a representative democracy - although the democratic nature of our current society is severely compromised by the problems surrounding democracy in the third sense of the term.)

2. democracy as a signifier without a signified - a purely rhetorical invocation used to justify mostly foreign policy. when the united states attacked iraq, one of the justifications for this war was the perceived need to introduce democracy into this area. without relapsing into the often heard (but therefore not less truthful) states-bashing, it seems safe to say the term democracy in this particular public discourse did not cover any content - it seems overall much more logical to place this war in the long tradition of economically motivated and US-supported coup d'etats in south america, in which perfectly valid democracies were replaced by military dictatorships.

3. the third meaning is, for me, currently the most interesting one. here, democracy is the movement or tendency that is diametrically opposed to privatization. when the state, for instance, renounces the minimum wage levels, leaving wages to the market, it reduces the sphere of its influence, thereby effectively compromizing the importance of the state form democracy (and reducing the influence of individual voters). clearly, the tendency to privatize compromises the people's power, and increases the power of an oligarchy that operates beside the official democracy, and is of a particular importance on a global level, because there is no global democracy to counter its movement (laws are national, not transnational - so powerful nations may take protectionist measures on their foreign market, while enforcing a laissez-faire liberalism on subaltern states). but on the national level too, a state that leaves all decisions to the market ought not to call itself democracy. if the state form democracy needs to be of any value, the public domain must constantly be wrought from the corporation's hands.

the interplay of these three domains, and the possible existence of even more meanings of the word democracy (such as the meaning propagated when one speaks of the "democracy" of language - the free floating nature of the written word (what jacques ranciere calls literarity)) might be something i'd like to write more about in the near future.

on tourism (especially modern exoticism):

our belief in the authenticity of local cultural practice is not unlike the suspension of disbelief that facilitates and constitutes the pleasure we derive from cinema. "oh, to eat bugs, just like the thai." surprise - only tourists eat bugs. (virtuality: the tourist is interpellated as a tourist with particular orientalist conceptions. the masochist host, eager to make money, creates an implosion of real and virtual in this process.)

aforementioned orientalist conceptions follow a fairly rigid pattern. we want the other to be authentic, but not too different - for we are scared of difference. (of the thai way of greeting, for example.) difference is uncanny, makes us uncomfortable - unless it fits into the rigid scheme imposed on us by the simulacra circulating in western media.

when perceived difference fits into these pre-established schemata, the tourist gaze can succesfully disavow underlying structural differences and its uncanny potentialities - this type of difference is reduced to its own surface, and has no potentialities - our death drive and our mediated world have eroded these and transformed them into the stereotyped Other.

(rethink terminology above.)

-how to look at the indigenous?
our look at the indigenous is invested with residual power structures. there's a double bind at work here: one can look with the colonialist gaze, rooted in the hegelian tradition; or with the orientalist gaze, rooted in rousseau. both presuppose a binary distinction into us and them that seems undeniably present, and that renders a dialogue starting from an equal basis a mere impossibility. we are still walking in the zoo.

however, these problems are only hyperboles of the general problem of intersubjective communication in an era that doesn't recognize sovereign guarantors/guarantees of knowledge. (in colonialism, at least we thought we were right - now, the concept of being right seems an absurdity.) as sloterdijk says, every act of communication is a small dying. and as wittgenstein says, we only notice linguistic difficulties when they appear as misunderstandings - there's no way of verifying whether two subjects engaging in dialogue distill the same meaning, until they don't. we'll have to take these difficulties for granted, and just keep trying.

when the indigenous returns our gaze, we feel discomfort; we become the monkey being watched, by someone that doesn't speak a language we understand. the zoo looks back at us.

we interpellate the host with to-be-looked-at-ness (this is badly formulated and a misplaced reference). therefore, the host succumbs to practices that fit within the frame of what he expects the visitor to expect. (ritual dances are not performed without a paying audience.) likewise, the visitor is interpellated (reciprocal interpellation that produces two virtual modes of subjectivity - one looking and one looked at) as one who wants to indulge in the virtual cultural experiences (preferably expensive) that the host country has to offer. they are interpellated as a simulation of themselves; we are interpellated as idiots - rich idiots who believe in simulations.

what appears, on the surface, to be an inversion of the colonial situation (they extract money from us now), is really a reproduction of colonialist class distinctions (even when thailand was never a colony). they can, by definition, never make nearly as much as us - they only get the money a small minority doesn't really need anyway - or gain any agency on a global level - for they remain subjected to and constituted by our gaze. their economic inferiority could easily be calculated (less tourists than hosts, and tourists mostly go to cheaper countries - if they get too rich, tourism will diminish).

thaiboxing. when we denounce certain elements (particularly the age of the participants) of a spectacle like this, we leave the impression to propagate a certain kind of cultural imperialism: "let them kids play football, just like our kids do." but things lie different here: we are perfectly able to accept and value the otherness of the other, but here, this otherness is founded on the desire of the tourist. the audience was almost completely western - without us, 8-year olds wouldn't fight in thaiboxing matches. a naive spectator could conclude that in spectacles such as this the country shows its monstrous, but real face. the face we see, however, is the effect tourism can have on economically unstable regions.

of course, here too, ultimately, the villain is global capitalism; a system i do not want to reject for lack of alternatives, but of which i do not want to neglect the malicious effects. these effects appear in full glory in the poorer regions of a globalized world in which rich people travel.

in future of a revolt, kristeva defines two kinds of freedom; the freedom to do well within a system, and the freedom to question the structures underlying a certain system. she identifies the second type as being typically european.

were i to act according to the rules derived from the first type of freedom, and define happiness as financial prosperity (the only definition that is universal and appears to find solid ground in this instance - paradoxically enough, even the wretched of the earth appear willing to accept this definition by fighting for pecuniary emulation), i would be a typical tourist, visiting every temple and snake-show along the way. this would make a decent income for the host-country, and everybody would appear happy, lest we look at the underlying structures and analyze their potential to change for the better.

were i to act according to the rules derived from the second type of freedom, things look different. i sincerely believe tourism is hurting the country - in fact, isolationism may be the best option for a poor country, for in relation to itself, no country is poor. the problem is that one tourist less won't change any of this. when we judge our actions according to a categorical imperative, however, tourism would no longer be an ethical option.

is there an effective balance between these two lines of action?

tom tom club (did they read faust?)

...

Words in papers, words in books
Words on tv, words for crooks
Words of comfort, words of peace
Words to make the fighting cease
Words to tell you what to do
Words are working hard for you
Eat your words but dont go hungry
Words have always nearly hung me

...

mots pressés, mots sensés,
mots qui disent la vérité
mots maudits, mots mentis,
mots qui manquent le fruit d'esprit

...

on the precedence of fact over theory.

in 2008, an exhibition about the künstlermythos was initiated in the hamburger bahnhof museum. i have not seen this exhibition, but the description promised a deconstruction of the romantic myths surrounding our conception of the artist.

one would be tempted to think this exhibition tried to contribute to this deconstruction. however, there is no need to contribute to this; over the past decennia, the conception of the artist has shifted from that of a romantic and secluded hero, a genius even, to that of someone in tune with the all-pervasive media environment, who interweaves with this environment and becomes a conscious agent in it. an exhibition like the one in hamburger bahnhof is not a contribution to, but a symptom of this development.

we are easily led to believe theory (and the offspring of theory, such as exhibitions like this) influence social developments, whereas they usually just notice them. perhaps the entire field of postmodern theory can even be seen as symptomatic of the diminishing relevance of boundaries, caused by transnational capital. of course, there is always a reciprocal influence involved here - theory and object interact. but to stipulate theory is always one step ahead seems disputable.

we may live in what is, as far as i know, the most introspective culture that has existed up till now. we theorise everything, and comment on all that happens. and so we should. the humanities are a field of phronesis; it comments and sometimes dares to make moral judgments, but there's no steady line of progress, as is the case in the predictive theories that make up the episteme of the hard sciences. foucault too recognizes this, when he distinguishes authors of discursivity (marxism, psychoanalysis) from authors of theory - the former work in a field that knows no linear progress, the latter work in a field that does, and are forgotten when a more encompassing or more accessible theory is available. but if theory in the humanities has little or no objective progress, and if its predictive value is negligible, what distinguishes it from historiography?

does not theory have an inherent propensity or urge to predict? here we stumble upon an interesting question; if the social sciences are merely descriptive, why aren't they annexed by the field of history? wherein lie the methodological differences between historiography and theory - other than in their choice of objects? (another question would be: does history have a predictive value? we do learn from the past, now don't we?)

Faust I

Mephistopheles: [...] Im ganzen: haltet Euch an Worte!
Dann geht Ihr durch die sichre Pforte
Zum Tempel der Gewißheit ein.
Schüler: Doch ein Begriff muß bei dem Worte sein.
Mephistopheles: Schon gut! Nur muß man sich nicht allzu ängstlich quälen;
Denn eben wo Begriffe fehlen,
Da stellt ein Wort zur rechten Zeit sich ein.
Mit Worten läßt sich trefflich streiten,
Mit Worten ein System bereiten,
An Worte läßt sich trefflich glauben,
Von einem Wort läßt sich kein Jota rauben.