Sometimes I find the elipse-question format for post titles a bit limiting. Mostly when I can’t think of a title that fits the format. Of course, I usually can’t think of any other title either. I’ve been in a bit of interbloggal conversation lately. Partly with Larval Subjects and mostly with RoughTheory about critical theory, which relates tangentially to the argument Jodi and I have been having about experience. I don’t know to summarize the discussions and I’m pretty tired (returned this morning from my 4th wedding since the beginning of June, which was fun and/but left me a bit worn out, during a summer in which I think ‘worn out’ has been my default feeling, unfortunately) so I’m not going to try (not trying is part of the worn out feeling, actually). They’re worth reading in their entirety, so click the links.
The discussion at RoughTheory turns in part around the theoretical grounding of positions, I think. While I like the discussion there and find it very compelling, there’s a bit of a disconnect for me. It’s not that I don’t think having coherent arguments and so on is important. I do. In that sense (grounding as in ‘justification’, as in ‘holds water as an argument’), I’m interested, onboard, and want N Pepperell to succeed in working all that out so I can read it. But that’s not the problem that’s really compelled me for a long time. What’s compelled me is less a matter of argument holding water and more a matter of the temperature of the water, so to speak. That is, I’m less concerned with exhaustive establishment of the truth of propositions regarding the critique and abolition of the present order than I am with sound conviction in that truth.
Let me put it this way. It’s one thing to affirm as true the proposition “my partner and I are in love.” It’s another to feel that strongly. Analogously, in politics or organization or whatever one calls it, it’s one thing affirm as true the proposition “capitalism can be abolished and replaced with a better order.” It’s another to feel it strongly. The second is a matter of conviction, of confidence. [Note to self, look these words up in the OED.] There’s the validity of an argument (the argument, if scrutinized, holds water), then there’s the belief in the truth of the proposition (one holds to the argument after encountering it – one affirms the proposition), then there’s a subjective feeling about the proposition which involves something like being able to really imagine the proposition coming about, the world really changing.
One could believe it’s not raining, but continually be opening the window to test if this is (still) true. Nowhere in that repeated testing of the proposition is there ever affirmed the proposition “it is raining.” In that case, it’s not a problem. In the case of love, though, it likely would be. A partner who continually tested one’s love, sought to re-verify it, would be harder partner to stay with than one who did not do so, presumably. Similarly, a comrade who continually seeks to re-verify that the revolutionary project is possible would likely be less commendable than the comrade who did not (all other things being equal). Or hell, not even the revolutionary project but much less thoroughgoing projects such as forming a union. In the middle of such a project, conviction can be quite useful and lack of conviction quite an obstacle. (For the sake of argument let’s define ‘conviction’ as involving relative infrequency of testing. More conviction that X means that one asks “Is X the case?” less often.) At the very least, lack of conviction and the energy spent on worry (for the sake of argument let’s say worry is either subjecting something to repeated testing or the repeated thought that perhaps the proposition may prove not to be true despite evidence) is corrosive and tiring, which during stressful things like a boss’s anti-union fight (which pales in comparison to the greater repressive tactics used in other more intensely conflictual situations) can really make or break the outcome.
I can see how theory of the sort that N Pepperell is talking about could quite useful for this kind of conviction. (An aside slightly related to this – I used to hang around a marxist and hegelian group who would assert that the movement needs philosophy. I always used to say that I agreed with them in the sense of need in the opening of v1 of Capital, where needs aren’t ranked and aren’t well defined. Needs are just things that make objects useful. The movement can use philosophy. Therefore there could be said to be a need for philosophy. Similarly the movement can use graphic designers and doctors and lawyers and body builders and sign painters and so on. But none of those, including philosophy is needed in the sense of being a necessary condition for the movement’s existence or its success. Likewise with critical theory.) I also think that in some cases and for some people critical theory may not be sufficient for producing conviction. I’ve found historical examples as productive or more than theoretical arguments. (The two aren’t absolutely opposed.) In general, I think narrative accounts are more productive in this capacity. (I’m thinking among other things of Richard Rorty’s insistence that sharing and spreading sad stories does more for moral progress than philosophical arguments, Rorty cites _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_ as having more significance in changing people’s behavior for the better than any or all of Kant’s works. I think that’s likely to be true.)
I’m happy to take a ‘whatever works for whomever’ kind of approach – the kind of theory N Pepperell wants to see (and like I said, I wish NP success in this) could be one kind of tool. Historical narratives another. Another is stacking the deck on the other side such that there’s a subjective choice to suspend uncertainty and act as if the proposition is true. That is, one can get people to suspend testing and act with something like confidence (and acting as if one feels confident, over time, can generate a feeling of confidence.) Like in bad movies, lines like “I’ve just got to believe that (s)he’s still alive.” One can get someone to find a certain situation intolerable such that the belief “this intolerable situation has to be changed” (which implies commitment to the belief that it can be changed) becomes easier than “I must endure this intolerable situation.” In some cases, this can be posed straightforwardly as a choice of beliefs based on a sort of calculus – “I’m not promising we can win. But I promise that if we don’t fight then we definitely won’t win. We don’t know until we try. If we don’t try then we know we’ll lose, in the way we’re losing now.” Etc. (This latter only really works in the context of performative/experiential recounting of bad experiences as part of the process of agitation. The goal is to get people to narrate unpleasant experiences such that they have an emotional experience in the narration, which then is a tool for moving them to action.)
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Another briefer thought – NP’s discussion reminded me that I’d been to post for a while on the normative framework(s) of marxism. In a nutshell, marxism involves normative claims. For instance, the protests against primitive accumulation in the last (and best) section of v1 of Capital are predicated on those actions being wrong, being reprehensible. I’m fine to leave the normative framework implied, whereas I suspect NP would want to make it explicit and fine tune it. Certainly my dear friend Colin would likely want to do so. That’s a fair impulse, though one I don’t really share. I think one of the questions bound up with what NP is working on is the degree to which these frameworks can and should be rendered fully consistent and recommendable. I’m skeptical of the recommendability of normative frameworks, that is,I think the criteria for recommendability rely on or imply a previous normative framework, so that the recommendability is always relative or partial or subject to questioning (as a possibility I mean). This is because there is no word of god to be revealed (where the revealed word of god would be that which is always assented to by any possible hearer). To my mind, enough subsidiary theories can always be sufficient to make any proposition believable and any action justifiable. This means that what we should be concerned about are _our_ frameworks, how well they serve our needs and how much they are succeeding (or not) in the world in relation to other frameworks – that is, in relation to others who hold to other frameworks – which are compatible and incompatible with our own in different ways (‘success’ and ‘compatibility’ judged according to our and not universal standards). I think I’m basically a Rortian here, despite his awful politics. I’m happy in this to rely on what are for me basically common sense and intuitive moral assumptions. I think marxism needs something like these, but should be made to function as a body of ideas which needs only the barest of these. That is, it should be normatively minimalist, so that the most variety of different positions can be accommodated within (can make use of) marxism. As long as they are communist positions. 
Just as in the workplace we don’t necessarily care (as in, we are not troubled over, we do care in the sense of ‘caring about the motivations of those we care about and feel for’) about the motivations for our co-workers in wanting to change the balance of power toward us and away from management, as long as everyone wants that and wants it enough to do the needed organizing work.
What in the hell… is confidence for anyway?
Hey Nate – Late here, so apologies for not doing full justice (or, for that matter, even very partial justice) to your post. I just wanted to mention that I basically agree with this – in other words, I take the kind of theoretical work we’ve been talking about in this latest cross-blog discussion as having a specific kind of purpose, and not as being the sort of thing for which you hold up other sorts of things (not least because this kind of theory is, in many respects, parasitic on observing some of those other kinds of things… ;-P). The concepts we’re playing with in this discussion in particular are at a sort of far edge of abstraction – and simply won’t be immediately relevant for most purposes, although they can be handy in those aspects of contestation that spill over into academic debates. There are other sorts of theoretical work that can have more immediate practical use – both in the “conviction” sense that you mention above (overarching narratives that link local contestations to broader issues and render local experiences intelligible or meaningful in a broader context can be empowering), and in the “action orientation” sense (helping movements not get blindsided by unintended consequences they could do something about, if they knew to look out for them) – but none of this requires the sort of abstract and formal analysis on which this discussion has hinged: much more ad hoc forms of theorising are generally fine, and a very different mode of communication and interaction is required. And absolutely theory is a contribution, not some sort of hierarchically central contribution – a major goal, in a sense, is to try to keep theorists from getting in the way, through forms of theory that do damage
On the normative issue you raise: I’m actually a sort of materialised Rortian (in the sense that you seem to be invoking him above) on this, as well – trying to understand a bit about where our common sense comes from, but treating this common sense as something that has simply arisen, generally for aleatory reasons, and generally when we were collectively trying to do anything but generating norms – but also as being as much of a foundation as we need, to do better than we are doing in our collective lives right now. Or something like that…
Late. Tired. And feel a bit like I’m stalking you (across three blogs now!).
Take care…
hi NP, Thijs,
Thijs, confidence is for keeping motivated for organizational projects in the face of a depressing world and aggressive bosses and their lackeys!
NP, thanks for this. I think we’re very close in many ways here (including a Lafargue streak, your comment at yours reminds me I want to reread that, being very lazy myself). I think the main (meta)theoretical difference has to do with grounding or fully establishing what you’ve called self-reflexive critical theory. I think I’m more pessimistic that it can be done, while optimistic about what can be accomplished when we take our common sense views or moral intuitions as the closest thing we can have to a solid foundation. I expect this is more a difference of degree and style than a difference of kind and substantive view. This also relates at least tangentially to the discussion Tom Grundlegung and I are having in fits and starts about MacIntyre and emotivism.
I still want to read the rest of the comments at your and respond later when I’ve got more time and energy, I’ll probly have more to say then. (I think you may have given me your cold, perhaps one of those computer viruses I hear so much about?) Also in case it wasn’t clear, I wasn’t voicing any anti-theory views. I think the differences between the types of theory you named (I liked your distinctions, by the way) are more like differences along a continuum than oppositions. The only major oppositions are related to institutional matters.
take care,
Nate
I originally thought that about NP’s work, too, until a few exchanges — starting roughly here (but tangled up with a separate discussion with someone else about “strcuture” and “post-structuralism”) — helped clarify things for me. Now I think that if NP’s seeking to “ground” a self-reflexive critical position, it’s very much a contingent, unstable grounding, and so not what one would ordinarily think of as a grounding at all. E.g.:
Cheers
rob
hey Rob,
Nice to hear from you. I’ll check out that link soon, thanks.
One thing I didn’t say in hear that was in the back of my mind is a connection with issues of faith. I’m a devout atheist (and on occasion, assholishly so), but I’ve gotten a fair bit of mileage from parallels with questions of religious faith (I don’t remember it very well anymore, but I remember find Kierkegaard very resonant and moving). In short, aside from the truth of the doctrine, there’s commitment to the doctrine, which means building the (or an) organization which adheres to and interprets and tries to act upon the values of the doctrine. I’d imagine it’s much more common that people affirm the truth of a doctrine without much commitment to it rather than people who don’t affirm the truth of a doctrine but do commit to it (I’m told the latter people do exist, at least within catholicism). That’s not quite right, actually, the commitment bit. Smaller than that, less than ‘building the organization’ is the conviction that the organization could be built, less commitment to the doctrine than strong feelings about the doctrine (not only is the doctrine true but it is worth while, so to speak, rather than sort of trivially true). I’ve really wrestled with this much more, that’s why this is big on my mind. It doesn’t seem to me that this is an objection to NP, though, just some thought stirred up as an eddy off the stream of discussion at Rough Theory and elsewhere.
take care,
Nate