Nietzsche and his Master

Plotinus wrote: 'But how are you to see into a virtuous Soul and know its loveliness? Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: he cuts away here, he smoothes there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has grown upon his work. So do you also: cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labour to make all one glow of beauty and never cease chiselling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendour of virtue, until you shall see the perfect goodness surely established in the stainless shrine.' The Enneads I.6.9

Nietzsche wrote: ‘Man is no longer an artist, he has become a work of art: the artistic power of the whole of nature reveals itself to the supreme gratification of the primal Oneness amidst the paroxysms of intoxication. The noblest clay, the most precious marble, man, is kneaded and hewn here, and to the chisel-blows of the Dionysiac world-artist there echoes the cry of the Eleusinian mysteries, ‘Do you bow low, multitudes? Do you sense the Creator, world?’ The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music

As Christ had John the Baptist, Dionysus and the ‘higher man’ had Nietzsche. This man of god who derivatively (of Lutheranism, of Hegel and of the egoist Max Stirner - 'Saint Max' to Marx and Engels) told us ‘God is dead’ - so that his god may enter centre stage - built his philosophy on a simile of Plotinus that recurred over and again in his, as a metaphor (as it has throughout our culture, prior to and post Nietzsche). This tortured lover of ‘life’ had as a goal that which he knew was impossible - a mystical perfection of self in this world. Given this, the direction of his life was inevitable.

From The Birth of Tragedy to the final so-called aphorism of The Will to Power - which contains a synopsis of The Enneads - the bond is unbroken between Nietzsche’s philosophy and Neoplatonism - particularly The Enneads.

The will to power of Nietzsche (as did the world as will of Schopenhauer) derives from The Enneads in which the Good wills itself and all else. It boils with willing. Its emanations are manifestations of its willing. Again, free will (and this before Augustine) carries the soul of the contemplator back to the Good, to itself. Ennead VI tractate 8 is on ‘Free Will and the Will of the One’.

Nietzsche’s perspectivism is based on what he called ‘the limits of reason’. As with the ‘limits of language’ of his fellow disingenuous mystic Wittgenstein (Heraclitus without the Heraclitus), Neoplatonism and particularly Plotinus are the source. The impossibility of facts for Nietzsche - this lover of ‘truth’ - is set against the impossibility of Absolute Truth and the ineffable, not a deepening relative truth by which it was once correctly held that the earth is flat.

Nietzsche subscribed to ‘free will’ no less than did Kant - but for Nietzsche it was the ‘free will’ of the ‘higher man’.

He subscribed to a connection between morality and imperative no less than did Kant, but for him it was the imperative of the ‘immoralist’.

Nietzsche’s at best contradictoriness, at worst - hypocrisy - was free-wheeling and through his rhetorical skill he demanded we submit and be swept along. Behind his lyricism, he was the ultimate bower bird, the ultimate used-car salesman.

The writing of Nietzsche, as with that of other German romantic philosophers, is steeped in Neoplatonism - where romanticism, there Neoplatonism. But this is only one brief period in Western culture. We could discuss the influence of Plotinus and apophaticism in the visual arts, in literature, in music and more, in this and other periods. Every university in this country at which philosophy is taught runs courses on Plato and Aristotle, but to my knowledge never one, once, on a figure of equal significance - Plotinus - and negative theology. Vanderbilt University is the one university I know of in the West where such courses have been run, for several years - by William Franke.

The suppression of this pervasive current in Western philosophy (which I refer to as the pornography of philosophy - assiduously studied by predominantly male philosophers, and its influence on their work dissembled about and denied) by academic philosophers is a disgrace and a profound failure of intellectual and social responsibility. A display of the most determined ignorance.

My questions are these: 

Are we so ashamed of ourselves that we cannot look openly at who we are and at what has contributed so significantly to forming us  - even as we draw on its creative power?

How much longer - particularly at a time of an immense global and cultural re-orientation - must we in the West cling to the myopic arrogance that we are the bearers of ‘reason’ while those in other cultures stare at their navels or are obsessed with filial piety?

Where are the barriers between ‘reason’ and emotions, 'reason' and intuition, 'reason' and what our brains do when we day-dream and when we are asleep, between 'reason' and all those other brain functions ‘below it'?

How else can these questions be addressed other than on a material basis?

Leibniz’s Perspectivism

For Leibniz, the nature of the knowledge we have of the world is perspectival, limited and finite. It is perspectival and limited because we are all in different places at any one time and can only view the world from those positions (literal perspective), have different beliefs about the world (metaphorical perspective) and finite not only because our monadic lives must end but because, despite our intellects, we can never grasp the world in its fullness and totality as can God in his omniscience. The degree to which our monadic capacities as ‘mirrors’ of God are developed determines the degree to which we can reason and understand God, his beneficence and the world - this very ability enables us to appreciate our limitation.

Leibniz wrote of ‘clear and distinct’ ideas. A differentiation between things gives a clear idea (for example we can reason about objects because we can perceive their form) but when it is known why a thing is as it is, what its essential properties are, the idea is distinct. Leibniz thought that scientific knowledge, though it aims to provide both clear and distinct ideas can only ever be limited because it is based on sensory information and reflects our finitude as monads. The ideas of empiricism and mechanistic physics give confused, contingent truths whereas the ideas of metaphysical reason lead to necessary truths, truths that are distinct - the ‘knowledge’ of particular concern to Leibniz. The knowledge of these necessary and eternal truths distinguishes us from animals and carries us beyond science, beneath science, to the true knowledge of ourselves, the world and God. For example, when we think about time and space clearly and distinctly we will know that they are not real, that they refer (Leibniz drawing on Neoplatonic duration) to the simultaneity and flux between monadic representations. As monadic ‘mirrors’ of God and his ‘mind’, we bear not only our futures but these innate ideas or truths in our own ‘minds’ as dispositions or tendencies. Leibniz denied that such knowledge was limited by our experience.

While our knowledge can only ever be limited and perspectival, God’s is perfect and infinite - not only is this monadic world his creation, all perspectives (again drawing on Christianity and the Neoplatonic hypostases of Intellect and the One) are united, co-ordinated and harmonised in his mind, the world. Consistent with God’s laws, it is an harmonisation of the internal states of the monadic substances, their perspectival representations (beliefs, perceptions) and appetitions (desires, drives). The interactions and interconnections between monads and their states - and therefore God’s harmonisation - are pre-ordained by him. In our finitude, we can only poorly realise this true knowledge.

That knowledge grasps its object from a particular ‘point of view’ is an excellent, necessary approach to knowledge. When two people look at the same object or consider the same issue yet think and speak about it differently, they do so because they have understood that object or issue on the basis of their own perspectives. The questioning of these perspectives, which do not deny the objective existence of what is under consideration, in relation to the other and their basis in objective reality, can result in the deepening of our understanding of what is seen or considered. Bringing perspectives to a matter is to cut facets on a rough diamond. Perspectives are essential to our deepening knowledge of the world, as metaphorically 'living' truth.

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Collingwood’s Distinction between Art and Craft

In The Principles of Art (1937) R. G. Collingwood makes a number of distinctions between the artist, the craftsperson and what they produce, the most fundamental on the basis of the relationship between them,  their products and emotion. The relationship between art and emotion is far more complex than that between craft and emotion. Though the practices of both are intentional and directed, art is a means of emotional expression and clarification, towards an unknown material end, while the planned end product of craft entails that it be a means of arousal for others. The products of the artist are intellectual and non-reproducible, going beyond predetermined ends, those of the craftsperson material and intended for reproduction. 

Art is a vehicle for the process of emotional self-discovery. It is not concerned with ‘simple’ emotions (for example joy, fear and anger) but with those which are complex, transactional and evaluative of the artist’s relations with the world (for example, moral emotions). These emotions have a complexity and cognitive density such that, in freely and imaginatively exploring them through their art, the artist can move from confusion to clarity - to the full expression and understanding of an emotion in its distinctiveness. In so doing, the result of the artist’s attainment of self-knowledge becomes a means of self-knowledge for all who see and think about his artwork. The test that an artist has clarified an emotion is that others understand his completed work. 

Collingwood wrote that ‘at first (the artist) is conscious of having an emotion, but not conscious of what this emotion is.’ He is conscious of a ‘perturbation’ or ‘excitement’ within him, the nature of which he is ignorant. All he can say is that he feels something but doesn’t know what it is. ‘From this helpless and oppressed condition he extricates himself by doing something which we call expressing himself. ... His mind is somehow lightened and eased.’ In exploring his emotions the artist explores his medium for expression and vice versa. Even though the artist works towards an end, neither that end nor any particular technique for expression can be preconceived. The artist does not want a thing of a certain kind (such as a product of craft), he wants a certain thing - the knowledge that comes with emotional clarification. 

Craft, on the other hand, has a pre-determined function or end. The craftsperson aims at the production of a certain state of mind in his customers - the state of having certain demands satisfied. His focus is general not individual. Craft involves a number of distinctions, primarily that between means and ends. In craft, not only the means but the actions concerned with them (e.g. operating the tools) are ‘traversed’ towards the end, then left. This is not possible in art because the end is not known independently of the means.

In craft there is a distinction between planning and execution. While the artist does do a degree of planning (e.g. they know what category of art they intend to engage with), freedom is central to their practice - planning is central to craft. In craft there is a distinction between raw material (matter) and the finished product, the craft transforms the form of the matter. Every craft has an hierarchical character, either within the craft or between crafts (re- materials, means and parts) where one supplies what another needs, one uses what another provides. Most of these points are involved with every craft. As with representational art, the ‘so-called’ artist knows exactly what kind of emotion he wants to arouse. 

Collingwood allowed that some works of art can also be craftwork - for example, a building. He wrote ‘It may very well be true ... that the greatest and most serious (works of art) always contain an element of planning and therefore an element of craft.’ An obvious example of this in Australia is the Opera House which, while it can be analysed on the basis of craft, fulfilling pre-determined ends, is considered a major work of art. Cavell also gave the example of Hollywood movies from the 1930s and 1940s as ‘great art’. In such cases you would have to distinguish on the basis of the above contrasts to decide which aspects are craft and which art.

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Plato and Aristotle on Emotional Release

Plato believed that in the poet’s presentation, what is at third remove from reality, he appeals not to reason - the highest part of the soul - but to the lowest, seeking to provoke the non-rational emotions. In so doing he undermines and corrupts character. When citizens enter into the emotions expressed by a character on stage their reason is obstructed by their own emotional arousal and they will carry this arousal from the theatre into their daily lives. Since emotions struggle against their control by reason, they are dangerous for the polis. For this reason, the poet should be banished from the commonwealth.

Contrary to Plato’s rigid opposition between reason and the emotions, but with equal though far more nuanced recognition of the relation between art, emotion, society and control, Aristotle’s theory of art in his Poetics is built on an understanding of the emotions which considers them not only bound, appropriately, to the functioning of reason (evocative of the Ethics, there is a ‘right’ emotion for a particular circumstance) but essential to the life of the citizen. Where for Plato art is the poorest imitation of the Forms, for Aristotle, although he agreed that art is intentional, representational and that it appeals to the emotions, it imitates human interactivity by means of universals (kinds of people) and the possible consequences. We enjoy and learn by mimesis - art is educational, with nature as the teacher of practical not theoretical knowledge.

Aristotle defined tragedy as ‘the imitation of an action that is serious ... in language with pleasurable accessories ... in a dramatic, not in a narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions’ Through the arousal of fear we identify with the tragic hero, burdened by a fatal flaw (‘The best-laid plans of mice and men ...’), through that of pity (for the hero’s suffering) we distance ourselves from him. The tragedy brings about a catharsis or therapeutic purging of those emotions, with the spectator leaving the theatre emptied of them. It could be argued that the tragedy simply serves a pedagogical purpose provoking insights into the human condition without endangering society - ‘you don’t leave the theatre wanting to burn chariots’. But Aristotle’s purpose was not merely pedagogical  - his writing is too comprehensive, too considered, too hard for that interpretation alone.

Neither Plato nor Aristotle were ‘men of the people’. Both weighed what they advocated against the practice and maintenance of power. Aristotle’s dry and formal language in the Poetics conveys an understanding which is anything but. He chose the most powerful art form in his society to do a study of how two of the most powerful emotions can be used - socially, pedagogically and for the maintenance of power (compare with the Ethics - the ‘common man’ can gain a lot from reading it, but it is not primarily intended for him - rather it is a guide to the perfection of self for the self-focused man, culminating in the philosopher).

Not only did Aristotle choose tragedy (the most concentrated and powerful presentation of life - more so than the epic) - one which employed chorus, song, stage-setting, acting - he analysed every possible element and means to maximally concentrate its potential around the arousal and purgation of pity and fear - wrapped in pleasure: plot, characterisation, diction, thought, spectacle, melody, that the tragedian must be as realistic as possible, must develop, like Homer, an aspect rather than a whole, should not speak in his own person, should use a convincing impossibility rather than an unconvincing possibility, should employ consequential surprise. Maximum realism (with which the audience can most immediately and powerfully relate) with optimal sensory engagement to most powerfully draw out and release two particular emotions. Why? And why pity and fear?

At a social level, the arousal and purging is facilitated by the pleasure of tragedy both as theatre and illusion and through the experience of fear and pity when in an audience (which is symbolic of one’s larger society), thereby allowing both identification and distancing from the emotions because they are shared. At a pedagogical level, in experiencing fear and pity ‘safely’ and in the most concentrated way, one can later reflect on these two emotions that are both unhealthy (consider Epicurus on fear) and would be best purged from our lives. ‘Catharsis’ can also be understood as ‘purification’ - getting rid of the 'baser' aspects of one’s character. At the level of control, ‘catharsis’ can be understood less specifically as ‘safety valve’. As the bourgeoisie leave their operas, the working class leave their rock concerts ...

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Plato, the Poet and Change

Plato believed that art is essentially mimetic and used ‘mimesis’ in different ways to express what the product of a craftsman is on a scale of diminishing degrees of reality and knowledge (from knowledge [pure thought and reason] to opinion [belief and illusion]), in relation to the true objects of knowledge - the Forms. Using the example of a bed: the eidos of Bed, made by the god is a unique, eternal and unchanging and therefore fully real essence, embodied in all beds. 

A bed made by a carpenter participates in the essence of Bed, but because it is in the world of change, is less real. An artist’s painting of the bed is a mere image or illusion because it is only of the appearance of the bed - the bed painted from one perspective, as though seen in a mirror - so the painting is thrice removed from true reality and knowledge. Similarly, the mimesis produced by the poet (who creates pictures with words) is the re-presentation of life - mere imitation.    

While an artist can paint a bit and bridle he does not understand the form that is proper to these objects, he has neither knowledge nor correct belief of what he depicts because he has no experience of them. The smith and leather-worker can make them - but even they don’t have the understanding of them that the horseman has. As with the soul, the tripartite Platonic divisions apply in the arts: here - the art of use, the art of making and the art of representation. The implied equation between ‘art of use’ and (knowledge of) eternal reality is on the basis of ‘complete engagement with’, developed in Neoplatonism. The poet is the counterpart of the painter - their work too is thrice removed from reality, for the same reasons. The poet knows nothing more than their own craft - how to re-present appearances. They have no knowledge on the basis of experience of what they write about but employ their mere imagination

Plato held that the only poetry that should be allowed in the commonwealth is that which praises the gods and ‘good’ men. He had particular hostility to ‘imitative’ poetry because it was to this that the Greeks had traditionally looked for moral and intellectual guidance (his prime target was Homer). He wanted to establish philosophy as that sole source, denying not only the parallels between poetry and philosophy - that they were both art forms that could be literary and pedagogical, but also the cognitive potential of poetry and the arts. He believed that ‘wisdom’ could be gained not through the study of the poet’s portraits of heroes but only through rigorous dialectic.

He argued that whereas (his) philosophy had as its summum bonum true knowledge on the basis of reason’s engagement with what was most real through strict training, the poet’s (particularly tragic) aim was the appeal to the non-rational part of the soul and the arousal of emotion in their audience, on the basis of the poet’s imitation of appearances. The experience of the emotions aroused would then carry over into the daily lives of the citizens, to their detriment.

What was particularly threatening to Plato (because of his sensitivity to and capacity for inspiration and his determination to deny lived emotions and change with his controlled, rationalist system, and whom Guthrie correctly described as a philosophical theologian) was that the poet is ‘divinely inspired’. Poets work from inspiration not conscious reason, they don’t understand the meaning of their language, they present a semblance of life with no grasp of reality. Such poetry, like all art, is play and not to be taken seriously. Thus Plato argued that the poet should be not allowed into a just commonwealth ‘because he stimulates and strengthens an element which threatens to undermine the reason.’

Driven by his antipathy to change and his incapacity to accept its reality and by the manifestation of this in his division and opposition between ‘reason’ and ‘emotions’, Plato banished from his republic (from what was in effect his model for the perfection of self) that which, as evidenced by his own writing, he had the deepest appreciation of - poetry - and those whose business it was - including by implication and most particularly, himself.

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Hegel and Marx/Mystic and Materialist: On Civil Society

The bases of Hegel’s and Marx’s theorising on civil society were diametrically opposed - Hegel’s was that of the spiritual progress of a rationalised, universal and mystical Geist which functions in nature and history and is manifested in consciousness, Marx’s was the material world. Yet there are several points of commonality between the two, particularly since the theorising of the former was fundamental to that of the latter.

Where Hegel’s view of society was tripartite and concentric, Marx’s was essentially dualist and antithetical. Hegel’s model comprised the family which was contained within civil society which in turn was contained by the centralised bureaucratic state which he regarded as the highest form of ethical life, the most stable expression of Geist. Marx rejected Hegel’s notion of a spiritual unfolding and saw in its stead a struggle between a dominant and exploitative bourgeoisie and the proletariat and a division between the state and civil society. He thought that rather than being the institutional and philosophical expression of reason, Hegel’s argument was ideological - the bourgeois view of the world, that Hegel’s view was contemplative and impotent - it did not seek to change the world by identifying and guiding the concrete participants who are going to do this.

Hegel’s model of civil society was a balanced and interdependent system of the needs of individuals and their satisfaction, informed by the individual’s contractual and legal rights and obligations based on market mechanisms. Through the individual’s interaction with others the progress of the universal finds its expression in the developing consciousness of their own universality - from individual to citizen: ‘through its reference to others, the particular end takes on the form of universality, and gains satisfaction by simultaneously satisfying the welfare of others.’1 Hegel’s civil society functioned in a rational inter-relationship between the family, civil society and state such that the dynamism of the modern world could be given expression and yet the society would be able to bear a degree of conflict as normal. 

For Marx, as with Hegel, civil society was where the productive forces and social relations functioned but he focused on the forces of production as a base on which all else socially was built and argued that the tension in how those forces operated and were controlled by the bourgeoisie impacted in a profoundly negative way on civil society which represented, through ideology, the interests of the bourgeoisie - those interests maintained by the state.2 Where Hegel argued for fundamentally harmonious ‘rational’ relations in civil society, all knowing their place and that his model embodied ‘the end of history’, Marx argued that this could never be, due to the class relations - the proletariat, exploited for their potential for surplus value, were excluded from the benefits of bourgeois society that they had produced and denied their humanity. Where Hegel held a contradictory position regarding the family - that it was the basis and first ethical power of the state even as it had been pulled apart and replaced by the corporation,3 Marx also argued that normal ties such as family were being eroded by the dynamics of capitalism, leaving the workers only their collective solidarity. This, Marx argued, could only be overcome by the overthrow of bourgeois property relations by the proletariat as the key stage for socialism. 

Hegel, with his interest in political economy,4 recognised the division of labour and its impact on workers, the increasingly mechanical nature of work, that exploitation was essential to capitalism and that the capitalist economy produces great disparities in wealth - his writing on this echoes the force of Marx’s writing.5 But, contrary to Marx, he not only thought that these problems could be ameliorated by the welfare provided by the police and the corporation (he was the first philosopher to theorise on a version of the welfare state - which welfare state did not concern Marx) or regulated (in order to avoid ‘dangerous convulsions’6), that there was no lasting solution to them - his theorising on civil society was a justification for capitalism. Where Hegel believed the dependence and reciprocity of work and the satisfaction of needs was a contribution to the satisfaction of the needs of all, Marx saw them as the satisfaction of the needs only of the bourgeoisie, at the great expense of the proletariat. Likewise, Hegel believed that through interdependence the individual multiplies his needs and means of satisfying them - for Marx, this only applied to the bourgeois who is a self-interested maximiser of their needs.

Both Hegel and Marx were very positive about the dynamism of capitalism but Marx, while recognising its historically progressive role, argued that this dynamism is ultimately self-defeating in its irrationality and dehumanising effect. Again, both Hegel and Marx following him positively recognised the creativity in civil society. Hegel believed that in satisfying needs we are continually transforming the world, continually creating ourselves morally and socially through both practical and theoretical activity - in transforming nature we transform ourselves. Marx’s focus was on the proletariat as creators, on their transcendence of capitalism, not only so that they can regain control of their collective creation but that they can liberate all human creativity.

Even though he recognised the importance in the growth of trade and commerce, Hegel’s limit of social organisation was the nation-state. Marx, because capitalism functions trans-nationally, believed that the proletarians all over the world would recognise their collective interest in struggle against it. He believed that the struggle against capitalism could only have an international solution. 

Marx’s analysis is clearly the most adequate - it is built on a study of objective reality not mysticism. Yet Hegel was a ‘keen observer’ of the world and like Marx, recognised the dynamic power and potential of capitalism. What for Marx had to be overcome, for Hegel was, in the nation state, the highest and end-point. It is very interesting that for such a profound and brilliant materialist as Marx, his theorising, which he derived substantially from that of Hegel, seems also to arrive at an end-point - in socialism. It is as if in their theorising they both had attained their telos and ideal.

Many, in their criticisms of Marx point to what he ‘failed’ to do - that he failed to address the complexity of modernity, that he failed to account for democracy, that he failed to account for nationalism, that he failed to see that the proletarians would soon begin to get a cut of the cake, binding them to capitalism. One such criticism is that Hegel’s analysis was more modulated, enabling him to recognise what was to become an enormous element of the bourgeois state - welfare, to recognise the part that ‘freedom’ and the satisfaction of the needs of all plays in the modern economy.

Such criticisms carry limited weight. Marx’s life’s work was a superb analysis of the commodity and its economic implications. His focus was not on the continuation for a period of time, of capitalism, it was on a far better more humane society beyond it and the contradictions within capitalism that would, at some stage, present the potential for its achievement.

Hegel’s theorising on civil society is premised on a positive understanding of the basic trends of bourgeois society and is bounded by the nation state. He failed to see the true potential and implications of global trade as did Marx. Where Hegel thought of the state and civil society working together, the latter happily under the domination of the former, Marx saw a split between them which could only be joined by the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. Civil society since the time of Hegel and Marx rapidly became central to capitalism - and the relevance of the term has broadened substantially to incorporate a wide range of organisations and institutions - if anything, increasingly under the sway of the bourgeois state and capitalist ideology

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Notes

1. G.W.F. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right, ed., Allen W. Wood, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003, p. 220, #182.

2. In an essay with strong racist elements the young Marx wrote that only under Christianity ‘which objectifies all national, natural, moral and theoretical relationships, could civil society separate itself completely from the life of the state, sever all the species-bonds of man, establish egoism and selfish need in their place, and dissolve the human world into a world of atomistic, antagonistic individuals.’ K. Marx, ‘On the Jewish Question’, 1843. For Marx, while the system of need satisfaction increases the level of social interdependence necessary in the economy, the potential proletarian solidarity remains latent until the struggle against individual atomisation assumes a collective form. At this point, capitalism begins to produce its own ‘grave-diggers’.

3. ‘civil society tears the individual away from family ties, alienates the members of the family from one another, and recognises them as self-sufficient persons. ... (it) subjects the existence of the whole family itself to dependence on civil society and to contingency.’ Hegel op. cit., p. 263, #238.

4. Marx also believed that political economy was a science, but that it was a bourgeois science, tainted by its commitment to the interests of the bourgeoisie.

5. ‘the emancipation of slaves is of the greatest advantage to the master.’ Hegel op. cit., p. 269, #248, ‘When a large mass of people sinks below the level of a certain standard of living ... that feeling of right, integrity and honour which comes from supporting oneself by one’s own activity and work is lost. This leads to the creation of a rabble, which in turn makes it much easier for disproportionate wealth to be concentrated in a few hands.’ Hegel op. cit., p. 266, #244.

6. Hegel op. cit., p. 262, #236. Where Hegel rejected democracy, fearing the ‘uneducated masses’, Marx showed little interest in it, believing it to be a front for political domination by the bourgeoisie - his focus was on revolution.

Marx, Foucault and Panopticism

As Marx began his analysis of capitalism with that of what lay at its heart, of what suffuses it - the commodity, Foucault began his analysis of western society by describing that society in panoptic extremis - during a plague: ‘It is a segmented, immobile, frozen space. Each individual is fixed in his place ... Inspection functions ceaselessly. The gaze is alert everywhere’.1 Where the leper was cast out from society into a leprous community, by the nineteenth century, society with its asylums, penitentiaries, schools and hospitals was a composite of outcasts - one built on binary divisions (mad/sane, dangerous/harmless, normal/abnormal) - and against these separated outcasts are ranged the mechanisms of power.

Foucault’s analysis moves from an abstract ideal of power, the Panopticon (designed by Bentham - proponent of the greatest happiness and felicific calculus and author of ‘... If pains must come, let them extend to few’) to its development in panoptic capitalist society. Foucault concludes ‘Is it surprising that the cellular prison ... should have become the modern instrument of penalty?’2 

Where Bentham’s Panopticon is comprised of a ring of seen packaged around a hub of seeing, Foucault’s panoptic society is a study in the most subtle and unrelenting pain of observation and containment, of a society in which the few masters who view are unknown, diffused amongst their subjects, and whose subjects themselves are their own impossibility of release.

The Panopticon as society is a naturalist - observing, assessing and classifying. It is a laboratory for punishment and experimentation. It supervises - its mechanisms, its personnel, its director. It functions - optimising efficiency, at the basis of society, developing the productive forces. It is institutionally enclosing while societally enforcing - from exceptional discipline to a discipline without bars, locks or chains. The permanently seen, like the chained elephant, are their own benign subjugators. We, as individuals, have become the panoptic machine state - Leviathan gazing down.

Discipline - ‘a type of power, a modality for its exercise, comprising a whole set of instruments, techniques, procedures, levels of application, targets ... a technology’3 - developed in knowledge and power, has grown from quarantined and institutional to distributed and panoptic. Disciplines are now co-extensive with the state. They maximise their intensity and profitability at the lowest possible cost. They increase docility and utility. They are the ever-so-discrete techniques of capitalism.

Foucault’s entire argument is abstract and nebulous. In his discussion of panoptic capitalism he referred to class domination and the bourgeoisie once each and not once to the working class. Surplus value becomes ‘surplus power.’4 He wrote that the panopticon ‘represented the abstract formula of a very real technology, that of individuals,’5 of ‘anonymous instruments of power.’6 Observation itself is democratised - anyone can exercise the power of the gaze - ‘The seeing machine ... has become a transparent building in which the exercise of power may be supervised by society as a whole.’7 - it is a point that he repeats throughout the chapter. By so doing, he obscured, in effect denied class relations. ‘Disciplines’ and ‘power’ are intentional, not those who employ them, the agents of the dominant class. Foucault wrote ‘It (discipline) must also master all the forces that are formed from the very constitution of an organised multiplicity; it must neutralise the effects of counter-power ... which form a resistance to the power that wishes to dominate it.‘8 

Compare this with The Communist Manifesto in which the argument is materially anchored in production and the struggle of classes. Where Marx and Engels wrote of what the bourgeoisie do, Foucault wrote of what ‘discipline’ and ‘power’ do. Where the argument of Marx and Engels exposes materially, that of Foucault is autonomous, ominous and miasmic. 

Foucault did not understand how nature works, that consciousness as manifest in ‘power’ and ‘discipline’ et cetera does not fundamentally determine the movement of matter, it is a manifestation of it. His account in this chapter is nihilistic - there is no hope, no redeeming truth or principle, no way forward. Foucault did not understand the nature of ‘panopticism’ in relation to capitalism. He argued the rise of panopticism is parallel to the rise of capitalism - that just as the economic take-off of the West began with the accumulation of capital, ‘the methods for administering the accumulation of men made possible a take-off in relation to power from traditional violent forms to subtle subjection.9 

He added that these two processes cannot be separated, that the ‘problem’ of the accumulation of men required ‘the growth of an apparatus of production capable of both sustaining them and using them ... the techniques that made the cumulative multiplicity of men useful accelerated the accumulation of capital.’10 Even here, where Foucault is at his most confusedly concrete, he thought that ‘each makes the other possible and necessary’11 rather than it being a single process whereby, on the basis of the objective development and refinement of the means of production there was a concomitant development and refinement in the processes of human relations and consciousness.

Notes

1. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans., Alan Sheridan, Vintage, New York, 1995, 195

2. Ibid., 227-8

3. Ibid., 215 

4. Ibid., 223

5. Ibid., 225

6. Ibid., 220

7. Ibid., 207

8. Ibid., 219

9. Ibid., 221

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid.