By Dontevendreamaboutit
My good friend, and co-author CodywithoutOrgans (who is another contributor to this blog) recently published an essay detailing her notes on Karl Marx’s writings. You can read her essay here, however the purpose of this current essay is to discuss aspects of the essay's response from the Substack author .sinnlich (which you can read, here).
In .sinnlich’s response, you will find a fairly rigorous account of Marx’s theory of value, Marx’s theory of commodity fetishism, as well as how Cody supposedly misunderstands Marx’s theory of value.
To begin with, I would like to say early on that for the purposes of this essay, I will not be disputing any of .sinnlich’s points on Marx. From my reading, .sinnlich’s case is cogent, well supported, and grounded in Marx’s writings. In fact, I am fairly confident that Cody herself would agree with most of what .sinnlich said, both in regard to Marx’s writings, as well as some of .sinnlich’s criticisms of her own work, at least how the objections are presented. With this in mind, I do not plan to address every one of .sinnlich’s arguments. I believe this would not only be boring to read, but would also be unnecessary. Furthermore, I would encourage readers to read .sinnlich’s response to Cody for a primer on the intricacies of Marx. If you want a primer on Marx’s theory of value, their essay is a good one.
Rather, the purpose of this essay-response is to defend (through further elaboration of my interpretation of Cody’s work) Cody’s inclusion of various philosophers who are not often considered into a reading of Marx. Additionally, I position Cody as attempting to pose a novel reading of Marx through Deleuze’s minor figures, as well as figures which Cody herself holds dear: specifically, of Spinoza, and Bergson.
By doing so, I hope to demonstrate that Cody’s inclusion of these figures adds an interesting and complicated textual layer to Marxist reading, which can either be joyfully played with or discarded as a tool that is no longer useful. Whether you accept Saint Cody’s proclamations, the choice is yours.
Regardless, with the assumption that .sinnlich may read this, I want to say that my goal for this essay is to expand on some of Cody’s claims from my own understanding, while also acknowledging many of the salient points by .sinnlich. This is not a polemical work by any means, but simply a work that hopes to continue this online discourse.
As a friend and collaborator of Cody’s, the aims of this response should rightfully be seen as selfish and stubborn. My motives are selfish because I view Cody’s authorship as somewhat of an extension of my own writings, therefore I feel the selfish drive to defend her honor. My motives, as what limits me, are also stubborn for being needlessly drawn to a Deleuzian love of novelty. With this acknowledgment, I will do my best to keep this discussion strictly related to the ideas and topics presented. However, I do allow myself to go on my own digressions.
Another limitation of my current response is that I am a somewhat novice reader of Marx, and I am often more interested in drawing interesting philosophical connections than reiterating vertabtum exactly what Marx said. With that being said, I try to be as faithful to the text as possible.
Like Cody, I study philosophy as a hobby, and my formal training in it is minimal. Therefore, although I do my best to understand Marx and other philosophers through my own primary and secondary readings, I am bound to make mistakes in one place or another. I am not claiming to have a final say on Marx, nor how he may or may not be read through these minor figures. My goal, like Cody’s, is simply to dance with concepts and figures of philosophy.
With that out of the way, here are some select responses to the response.
Why Spinozan Monism?
Cody’s goal has always been to present the interconnection of various philosophers that she finds personally interesting, and to develop her own skills as a minor-philosopher outside of the confines of academia. What Cody lacks in formal academic training, she makes up for in a hermeneutic dance of concepts. Part of Cody’s methodological dance involves picking up figures and placing them into composition as if they could learn from each other.
All of this is to say, Cody takes seriously Delueze’s project to use philosophy to bear a ‘monstrous’ offspring. As a consequence, her writing style can sometimes favor free flowing connections over a technical rigidness. In most cases, I think she is justified in this approach, however, I understand how this style might come off as ‘too open’ or unscholarly. However, in my opinion, it would be better to view this approach as a kind of desire-generator. Sometimes, desire-pathway may lead nowhere, and others, it will create a line of flight towards something interesting, or new.
For example, .sinnlich is particularly critical of Cody’s linking of Marx’s theory of value with Spinoza’s Substance Monism. Let us first consider Cody’s words, and then go into .sinnlich’s reply.
According to Cody, the Spinozan aspect of Marx’s theory of value might partly be seen when Marx says “all commodities are crystallisations of the same substance. The specific character of this substance, i.e., of labor which is embodied in exchange-value…". Cody then goes on to say that this quote demonstrates a kind of monism within Marx’s theory of value.
.sinnlich is correct in pointing out that for Marx and Spinoza, the use of “substance” is used quite differently. For Spinoza, there is only one substance -- God or Nature -- which expresses itself creatively across two parallel lines: thought and extension. For Spinoza as well as Bergson, these differing expressions of substance are united by a monism. On the other hand, when Marx says “all commodities are crystallisations of the same substance”, he doesn’t mean they are expressions of God or Nature (although, this wouldn’t necessarily be a problem), but rather that when homogenous labor time is combined with an object -- under capitalist social relations -- we get exchange value.
But how is this a kind of monism as Cody claims?
Although it may seem that Cody is making things too complicated by bringing in Spinoza, the claim Cody is making is actually pretty simple: all objects have both a qualitative and quantitative aspect. The quantitative aspect of a commodity is homogenous labor time which creates value under capitalist social relations, and the qualitative aspect is the ‘use-value’ (which may not properly be called value at all) that is consummated precisely in the act of consumption.
So far, although the inclusion of seemingly theological language may seem suspect, there is nothing mystical going on here when Cody says that Marx’s theory of value presupposes a kind of monism. The fact that objects have a qualitative and quantitative aspect is a basic assumption of Marx’s materialism. In fact, Marx himself says as much at the very beginning of Capital Vol. 1:
“Every useful thing, as iron, paper, &c., may be looked at from the two points of view of quality and quantity. It is an assemblage of many properties, and may therefore be of use in various ways.”.
What does this very basic observation tell us? A thing has a qualitative aspect which “become a reality only by use or consumption”, as well as a quantitative aspect (for example, how the object is counted, or how a commodity is thrown into movement and circulation with other objects)1.
I believe Cody makes this connection clear when she says that:“Use-Value then is this Spinozan Substance, this Nature which "serve[s] directly as means of existence" but which takes various, different forms…” and exchange value is the quantitative aspect of value. I emphasized the word “directly” here in order to point out that Cody is saying that ‘value’ is immediately performed in the act of consumption.
Cody also demonstrates this point when she says:
“The Spinozism of Marx here is that Exchange Value is simply the way in which different Use Values are made equivalent to one another. These values are garnered in the commodity through the process of labour”.
Is Cody saying, as .sinnlich asserts, that “it follows from this that, flying in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, Cody understands Marx’s value theory as ontologically constitutive of existence itself!”?
I would argue that this is not what Cody is saying. At worst, Saint Cody’s sin here is oversimplifying Marx’s theory of value. However, this does not imply that she is saying that value (use-value or exchange value) is constitutive of existence itself. In fact, I think this is clear by the fact that Cody says that these dual aspects of value are “garnered in the commodity through the process of labour”, and not, by God or by being eternal to the object itself.
The fact that value is garnered through labor implies that the use-value of the object can and will change over time. The use-value of the object exists only through its consumption. Furthermore, it is the error of capitalism of treating these objects as if they could be related through a general equivalent. Under Capitalist production, the function of exchange-value is to treat objects' as if they were homogenous and exchangeable.
According to Thomas Nail, in his book Marx in Motion, value for Marx is borne under specific material-kinetic conditions. Importantly, “Marx wanted the abolition of the whole dualism at the heart of modern economics'' (Marx in Motion: A New Materialist Marxism, 75). I.e. the abolition of exchange-value. I will note that Nail’s position “is neither dualist or monist”, but rather seeks to “take seriously the historical dualism between use-value and value created by capitalism and abolish it” (75).
Regardless, Cody’s initial observation does not disagree here insofar that value creation under capitalism operates as if commodities had a two-fold value. If Cody is mistaken in this respect, it is in not clarifying that this kind of value creation is historically contingent to capitalism, and that value ought to be abolished (which I will touch on later).
Put simply, I believe that Cody is making this connection between Marx and Spinoza to illustrate how material-production is entangled and interconnected. As she says, “This is materialism as understood that all things are connected, or interdependent”. This is also why Cody cites the concept in Buddhist philosophy of dependent origination.
The major point she is trying to get across is that the concept of monism helps us understand the interaction of things, of causality, and mutual affection of objects.
I hope this portion of my defense was fairly clear, although I’m sure it will have some objections which I cannot anticipate. I will next go into my own digression into Bergson to discuss some of his historical intricacies in leftist thought.
My Digression into Bergson
In 1988, Giles Deleuze wrote his book Bergsonism. In it, Deleuze briefly compares Bergson’s observation that the greatest problems are put into motion at the moment they are stated, with Marx’s comment that “which is valid for practice itself: "Humanity only sets itself problems that it is capable of solving " (15-16). For Bergson, in Creative Evolution not only is the human capacity to put forth problems a creative act, it is also a factor of life itself (this creative impulse of life is what Bergson calls elan vital)2. For Bergon, a solution is only as good as the problem stated. Whereas for Marx, the solution of problems are performed through an intimate and immediate relationship of theory with practice.
It should be pointed out here that Bergson has a quite interesting relationship with the history of Marxist, as well as Anarchist, theory and philosophy, despite not being an outwardly political writer. Although Deluze’s work was pivotal in reclaiming Bergson’s thought after his fall from academic stardom, Delueze was not the first philosopher to draw a connection between Marxism and Henri Bergson (nor the last). According to James Jay Hamil Ton, Bergson’s concept of intuitionism played an interesting-- albeit inconsistent -- role in 19th and 20th century French Marxist Syndicalist Georges Sorel’s theory and practice. In Ton’s essay titled Georges Sorel and the Inconsistencies of a Bergsonian Marxism, Sorel is said to have built a shaky bridge between the epistemology of Bergson with Marx’s social theory.
Sorel accepted -- in a seemingly contradictory way -- Marx’s “critique of economic and social oppression as a historical datum (while denouncing the competing intellectual, positivist sociology, la petite science) and the validity of its chief moral and sociological concepts-namely, the oppressive regime of capital, class war between bourgeoisie and proletariat, and the free socialist society, while simultaneously denying that there are unchanging laws and categories or unfailing social mechanism” (Ton, 331).
Despite these inconsistencies, the conjunction of these different philosophical concepts and traditions allows for some interesting and generative practical and theoretical applications. Namely, while accepting history and modes of production as (somewhat) of a driving force, Bergson’s concept of Creative Evolution introduces a level of indeterminacy while eliminating a telos (or the so-called Hegelian concept of the “end of history”). As Ton’s says:
“Sorel introduces into Marxism a basic uncertainty. "He is concerned only with rises and falls, creative societies and classes and decadent ones. No perfection, no final victory is possible in social existence; only in art, in pure creation, can this be achieved" (Berlin, 1971: 1620). The process of historical change is no longer determined or necessary. History is open-ended and society is a human creation, a work of art (Berlin, 1971: 1619; Sorel, a: 207-208)” (331).
Ton’s basic assumption here is that Marxism and historical materialism is a necessarily mechanistic and deterministic outlook, which makes Bergson’s concepts of intuition as method, elan vital and creative evolution incompatible. Similarly, in 1901, the Russian Marxist philosopher Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov wrote a pretty damning critique of Bergson, primarily Bergson’s adherence to the creativeness of consciousness and intuition, and his deprioritization of history as a motor for change3.
From a very brief survey of these two philosophers, Plekhanov on the side of Historical Marxism and Sorel on the side of a seemingly anarchist Bergson, we are told a story which presents these two philosophies as incompatible. However, I would submit that we only will see them as incompatible when we (1) believe Marxism to be purely mechanistic and possessing a (hard) historical determinacy, and (2) fail to view the conjunction of these two modes of thought as creating something different than the sum of their parts.
Ultimately, the main dispute seems to be between the intellect of science, and the intuition of metaphysics, even though for Bergson (especially in Creative Evolution), we require both for different purposes. Furthermore, unless we follow the party line of Marxist-Lennists and Maoists, it hardly seems necessary to accept historical determinism, and especially one which involves a strict teleology. In other words, we can accept materialism while at the same time affirming joy and creativity, they are not mutually exclusive. Rather, what Sorel seems to introduce are questions about how to make an assemblage of a Marxism which affirms both the need for historically driven political action, while also affirming the creative rhythms of singular intensities.
Later on, building on the work of Deleuze and Guattari, the Italian Autonomous Marxist philosopher, Franco Beradi further situates aspects of Bergsonism into Marxist thought. In his book AND: Phenomenology of the End, Bifo is particularly interested in Bergson’s concept of duration, which he views as the creative unfolding of time which gives rise to new, unique, and sensible experience. In accordance with a Bergsonian novelty, Bifo contrasts the connective logic of capitalism which operates by abstracting phenomena into a uniform code, with the singularity of conscious experience. Showing what he owes to Bergson, Bifo writes:
“According to Bergson, “we perceive duration as a stream against which we cannot go”, a stream that we cannot go back up, and in this stream, in every instant new configurations of being come out of nothing.
Sensibility is the faculty which makes it possible to find the path which does not exist, the link between things that have no intrinsic or logical implication. Sensibility is sense-driven creation of conjunctions and the ability to perceive the meaningfulness of the shape that is emerging from chaos, not by way of recognition, not because it is compatible with some form that we have seen before—but simply because we perceive its aesthetic correspondence, its accordance (conformity) with the expectations of the conscious and sensible sensitive organism.” (Franco Beradi, AND: Phenomenology of the End).
For Bifo, (Semio)Capitalism captures our aesthetic and sensible experience, thus converting it into binary code. Therefore, part of the task of overcoming capitalist logic means to embrace our conjunctive and collective rhythms, i.e. our own durations, our own feeling of time.
I think it will become obvious later on why I went on this digression, but I’ll make a few points here which will become more clear as the essay progresses:
Bergson’s influence on Marxism and Anarchism are complicated
The point isn’t to abandon Marx in favor of Bergsonism (or vice versa), but to use Marx as a starting point for Materialist analysis, and Bergson for a metaphysics of time.
Now, let’s touch on Cody’s so-called ‘digressions into Bergson’.
Heterogeneous Time Versus Space
As stated earlier, Cody’s seemingly odd inclusion of Spinoza might be read to state simply that all objects have qualitative and quantitative aspects. This implies a kind of monism insofar that this monism is kinetic as well as contingent on historical phenomena. Similarly, Cody very briefly mentions Bergson simply to illustrate the exigency of action to reclaim time or duration. Now, with Bergson (and Bifo) in mind, we should understand this to mean creativity, and the singularity of sensible experience.
With this exploration into the two-fold nature of the commodity4, Cody's supposed “digressions into Bergson” can come into clearer focus. In Time and Free Will, Bergson differentiates phenomenological experience into two parallel (and interconnected) multiplicities: qualitative multiplicity (simple, singular, heterogenous) and quantitative multiplicity (numerical, symbolic, homogenous). For Bergson, our immediate experience of things is qualitative and psychic and through our intellect we abstract these qualities thereby converting them into numbers or symbols.
This is a complex operation. However, it should be noted that the immediate experience of heterogeneous time, or duration, is viewed as being ‘broken up’ into a linear sequence of homogenous blocks, and is abstracted into symbols, numbers, or language. Or in other words, what is felt becomes externalized. Duration becomes spacialized:
”Consciousness, goaded by an insatiable desire to separate, substitutes the symbol for the reality, or perceives the reality only through the symbol. As the self thus refracted, and thereby broken to pieces, is much better adapted to the requirements of social life in general and language in particular, consciousness prefers it, and gradually loses sight of the fundamental self” (Henri Bergson, Time and Free Will, 128).
Noteworthy, for Bergson, our quantitative experience of life is an abstraction of pure duration, which makes us believe time should be treated in terms of space. For the benefit of science, and social life, this abstraction has many advantages, and should not be abandoned altogether. In my opinion, as well as Bergsons, science reigns supreme in understanding physical phenomena because only science can make sense of the world through empirical observation and study. Marxism, similarly, reigns supreme in understanding how historical, political, economic, and social conditions cause historical change.
However, Bergson believes if we become too reliant on analyzing life as homogenous and calculable, we risk being open to experience the heterogeneous movement of time (which is unique, singular, and qualitative) that can only be garnered through intuition.
Although what Bergson is saying is not properly “Marxist”, it is noteworthy that for Marx, value creation has more than a purely economic effect. According to Marx, in The Poverty of Philosophy, the equalization of time (or as Bergson would say, the externalization of time) under capitalism not only has an impact on value creation, but also the devalorization of man:
“Then it is not necessary to say that the hour of one man is worth the hour of another man, but rather that a man of one hour is worth another man of an hour. Time is every-thing, man is nothing; he is no more than the carcase of time. There is no more question of quality. Quantity alone decides everything, hour for hour, day for day; but this equalization of labor is not the work of M. Proudhon's "eternal justice"; it is solely the accomplishment of modern industry.” (Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, 57).
It might seem that Bergson is saying that real movement is only based in conscious experience (thus making him an idealist), while matters involving space are merely an abstraction, however this would be too dualistic. It is actually that pure duration -- which is the condition for real experience -- is itself the unfolding of heterogeneous movement. As humans, our intellect abstracts this movement into quantifiable formulae. However, our intuition also grants us the capacity to tap into this movement via our own unique rhythms. This means that the aforementioned two multiplicities are an impure mixture or rather an entanglement of foldings and unfoldings. They are not so easily separated, and the changes in one affects the other.
Our tendency to abstract phenomena is fundamental to our intellect, however, this does not make all abstractions the same over time. For Nietzsche in The Genealogy of Morals, the meaning of punishment and cruelty as a form of judgment changes along with the tide of historical conditions. For Marx, .sinnlich is correct to point out that “[t]he measure of the value of the product is abstract socially necessary labor-time only under these specific conditions, i.e. under the conditions of capitalist production”, and that pre-existing (and future) ways of abstracting phenomena are deeply interconnected with their historical context.
Although the mode of abstraction does change depending on differing historical conditions, there still remains a qualitative and quantitative aspect to objects, and their interconnection. Referring back to Nail’s book, the supposed ‘value’ of an object is in constant motion with others, in a relationship of consumption-production. As Nail says, consumption-production is not unidirectional, but intra-active or interpenetrating. Value is first born through a violent process of primitive accumulation, and is thrown into motion in a “kind of feedback system” (Nail, Marx in Motion, 72).
Again, .sinnlich is correct that the concept of ‘value’ inherent to an object is an imaginary concept made by classical economists. Or as Postliterate commented on Cody’s essay, “The point is not to retain "full value" but to eradicate value altogether and make obsolete the homogeneous consideration and determination of time by value. The "full value of the day" does not exist except in the fantasies of the bourgeois”.
As Marx says, value is a farce, and is always stolen:
“As the value of labour is only an irrational expression for the value of labour-power, it follows of course that the value of labour must always be less than its value-product, for the capitalist always makes labour-power work longer than is necessary for the reproduction of its own value” (Marx, Capital Vol. 1, 679).
What matters is how we --to borrow an expression from Deleuze and Artaud -- ‘do away with the judgment of God’ by transforming the conditions of production to favor consumption and enjoyment, abolish the abstraction of time by capital, and to overcome the abstract machine of capitalism.
Reclaiming Time?
All of this being said, .sinnlich’s core objection may not be fully addressed, for it is obvious that Capitalism works by comparing different things as if they were simply the embodiment of a general equivalent: labor-time. Additionally, we have not addressed .sinnlich’s most damning and serious criticism of Cody’s essay which I will quote here in full:
“In her essay, Cody develops the notion of communism as the reclamation of “the full value of time. the full value of the day.” She claims to derive this interpretation from Marx, but from what has preceded, it would strike us as quite strange if Marx suggested the socialization of labour through value within communism. Marx’s whole standpoint rests on the super-cession of capitalist forms of social organization, and if my analysis holds true, then certainly Marx couldn’t base communism on the continued existence of value, the most basic one of them all. The precise answer to this dilemma is that Marx never puts forward this interpretation of communism or labour…” (.sinnlich, Saint Cody: A Critique of Rigor).
If this objection is correct, Saint Cody may have dug her majesty into a serious hole. However, is this what Cody is claiming?
Cody ask, and answers:
“What should we demand today?
The full value of time. The full value of the day
£7? A pittance. A single slice of steak would often go for £7. How can a whole hour of time for someone be worth only merely a simple slice of steak? The labourer who produced this steak would have had to produce more than tenfold this in the hour it took, and would have only received the wage to purchase himself only one. Only one of the several he had himself produced.
This is the fundamental problem which Marx foresaw and describes to us in detail across his works. That the value of time and of wage labour is managed by a class of barbaric, apathetic, narcissistic hoarders
"Vampires"- who consume our flesh, energy and time for profit.”
The major objection to Cody here, according to .sinnlich, is that Marx wants to abolish value, not retain its “full value of time” as Cody says. This same objection was brought up by Postliterate’s comment cited above, so there is good reason to address it in further detail.
To .sinnlich’s credit, they do entertain the possibility of Cody referring to, quite literally, the worker reclaiming their own time (and not merely labour-time), but they quickly abandon this charity and claim “...from the mouth of Marx himself, Cody’s analysis is 1) tautologous 2) vulgar and 3) shallow. At best, her analysis yields a confused description of a real motion that “must first be discovered by science” (pg. 682)”. These claims as .sinnlich presents them may be correct about this line of thinking, although a bit harsh, but it is not my goal here to moralize. However, I wish .sinnlich would have entertained this possibility with a little more patience, and a little less scorn, because if they had looked at Cody’s reference to Bergson, they would find that what Cody is saying is not as far off from their own position as much as they had initially assumed.
Admittedly, when I talked about this with Cody herself, she mentioned that she would have gone more into Bergson if she was more comfortable with his work. Although I am not the resident Bergson guru, MrJackF, I do feel relatively comfortable expanding on the connections between Bergson’s Duration and Marx’s theory of value.
Additionally, it is worth taking seriously sinnlich’s point that, “Labour-time is the constitution of value, but itself has no value. There is no “full-value” of a day, there is no “full-value” to be demanded”. In this respect, I would agree that Cody’s phrasing that the “full value of the day” should be reclaimed does seem unfortunate at first glance.
If we were to count another sin towards Saint Cody’s argument, it would be that Cody shouldn’t have used the word ‘value’ here, and that she could have been clearer in explaining Bergson’s influence of this claim. However, I think if we take a deeper look into Bergson’s concept of duration (as Cody cites), we will understand that Cody is talking about Bergson’s conception of time as duration in this passage, and not that we need to reclaim the full value of labour-time.
She is quite literally saying, we must reclaim time (as singular, unique, and sensuous). We must reclaim the singularity and sensuousness of experience which has been stolen and compartmentalized by Capitalism. As Bifo argues in AND: Phenomenology of the End, we must by whatever way possible opt for the differentiating flow of conjunction over the compartmentalizing logic of connection (such as the logic of Semio-capitalism).
We should understand the concept of duration to be something that is purely intensive, and operating by its own, unique, internal rhythm. Which is to say, duration is something that is immediately consumed and performed by the individual. For Bergson, when we think of duration in this way, we can start to truly understand why it is so absurd to treat time as if it were merely a homogenous quantity. There is certainly a relationship between space and time, but it doesn’t follow that we are justified in treating time as only if it were an abstract homogenous quantity. This abstraction becomes more of a problem under the mechanism of Capitalism, where not only time is abstracted but is made into a condition for value.
But what is to be done? Isn’t reclaiming time a bourgeois fantasy? Does Cody want to uphold the conditions of value?
Reclaiming time is only a bourgeois fantasy if we equate time with value. However, if by time, we mean duration, we are not talking about value any longer. We are making a metaphysical statement in support of our Marxist statement: abolish the abstraction of time in all forms. Find your rhythms and intensities. Create alternative rhythms.
Does metaphysics support us in our materialist goal? Certainly not. Only by changing the current state of things can we expect economic and political transformation. But that does not mean we cannot affirm our own intensities, and work to create a rhythm of the world that suits us better.
Conjunction AND Critique
As I’ve stated previously in another way, Cody’s goal is to generate and build conjunctions in an act of joy. She affirms her joyful passions, rather than succumbing to a reactive scholarly malaise.
This isn’t an ‘excuse’ for an accused lack of intellectual rigor. To me, it is obvious that we need people who perform philosophy with a fine-toothed academic comb. Rather, I am saying that we should understand Cody’s project as an affirmative, creative, and artistic one, just as much as a philosophical one. Cody is not ‘lazy’. She dedicates her entire life to studying philosophy, without a formal academic background, so that she can spread class consciousness and philosophical concepts to the world.
I will move on from this point, but I am bringing this up because I wonder where such scorn about others misreadings come from? For me, we can point out where others are wrong and mistaken without turning the discourse into a battle of scholarly wits, and name calling. As an example, .sinnlich’s critique minus the jabbs at Cody’s person was a productive reading of Marx. Furthermore, critique is never fully destructive, but always affirms something in its process. Critique is essentially creative.
In Leftist discourse, this trend of the Ruthless Critique of Everything Existing no doubt began with Marx. Marx’s The Poverty of Philosophy, for example, is mainly a damning criticism of Proudhon. Lenin provocatively called “left-wing” communism an infantile disorder. There are many examples. Our love for savage burns has become a time honored tradition. But is ruthless critique the only way?
As 21st Century Marxists, I wonder how a conjunctive and affirmative approach may serve our cause more than a connective approach. For Bifo, whereas a connective approach seeks to convert phenomena into a homogenous and rigid code, conjunction is a project which affirms difference along with its disregularities. Although it is obvious that affirmation should have its limits, we might ask: can scorn be met with respect? How might we correct, complicate, or even affirm our peers' misunderstandings without treating them as unintelligent interlocutors?
In my opinion, we have more to gain by respectfully demonstrating others' misunderstandings and misreadings, especially when your peer is willing to listen. Furthermore, Substack has never, and will never, be a space for true scholarship. And why should it? There has already been much ink spilled outlining the intricacies of Marx, Deleuze, Bergson and Spinoza. And there's more to come within the university. But we don’t write for the University. We write for ourselves, for our friends, and those who choose to read. If we are wrong, tell us. Show us. Demonstrate how we are mistaken, so that we may adjust.
But allow us to say “AND”! Allow us to make friends via conjunction. Allow us to affirm our own intensities, as we will allow you to affirm yours.
References
CodyWithoutOrgans, “Notes on Marx: Capital, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, Principles of Communism, the Communist Manifesto: A reading involving etymology and translation, as well as the connections between Marx, Engels and Hegel, Spinoza, Bergson and Deleuze”, Substack.
.sinnlich, “Saint Cody: A Critique of Rigour”, Substack.]
Karl Marx, Capital.
Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy
Thomas Nail, Marx in Motion.
Giles Deleuze, Bergsonism.
Franco “Bifo” Beradi, AND: Phenomenology of the End.
Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution.
Henri Bergson, Time and Free Will: An Essay of the Immediate Datum of Consciousness.
Georges Sorel and the Inconsistencies of a Bergsonian Marxism, JAMES JAY HAMILTON.
For more on this, read Marx in Motion, by Thomas Nail, cited below.
As noted by Deleuze in Bergsonism: “It is here that humanity makes its own history, and becoming conscious of that activity is like the conquest of freedom. (It is true that, in Bergson, the very notion of the problem has its roots beyond history, in life itself or in the elan vital: Life is essentially determined in the act of avoiding obstacles, stating and solving a problem. The construction of the organism is both the stating of a problem and a solution” (16).
As Plekhanov says, “Being unfamiliar with historical materialism in its classical formulation, Bergson could not grasp the proper significance of the changing succession of relations of production in the process of development of human society”.
I am pulling this usage directly from Thomas Nail, cited above.