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jhameiaBecause it's been a long time since I posted anything remotely academic on this LJ! I've been posting stuff over at my Tumblr, but this is a nice neat response, and my prof told me it was good, and I even presented on this reading, so, here it is.
Building on observations of 1980s, Paolo Virno seeks to create a theory of transformation that contextualizes the current emotional situation, concretizes the conditions and circumstances of conflict, and thus provides a framework within which to restructure potential politics (or in his own words, a “possible world”).
To begin, Virno diagnoses the emotional situation of the period (a little before 1996), the “modes of being and feeling so pervasive as to be common to the most diverse contexts of experience” (12), to conceptualize the “immediate coincidence” between the several “points of identity between labour practices and modes of life”. He points to the overlap – intrusion, even – of work organization into socialization, creating a wage labour culture which is “[m]arked by intensified domination” and has two major elements: opportunism, and cynicism (13).
Opportunism is characterized by “interchangeable possibilities” in which the opportunist no longer settles into a single position and steadily advances in the workplace, but instead is constantly trying to get ahead, insecure in its ephemeral position and retain its privileges. Opportunism creates a “stable instability” (16), with the only thing stable in the opportunist’s search for job security is the actual search.
This environment lends itself to cynicism, the recognition of a kind of game played by “certain epistemological premises” and the lack of equivalences. As such, the cynic sheds any expectation for objective truth and plays the game, flexible to its own shifting goalposts . The cynic intellectual exercises are meant to “predetermine the character of the cooperation involved in work,” using a set of rules with “minimized elaboration” (23). Virno’s cynic is short-sighted and concerned with immediate social survival, not with equality.
Opportunists and cynics dominate the wage labour culture for a reason; to get to this reason, Virno looks beyond the manifestations of the emotional situation to their neutral kernel, the condition which allows them to exist in the first place. Just as opportunism exists primary because we do live in a world where we “articulate ourselves primarily through possibilities, opportunities, and chances” instead of a set narrative, cynicism exists because of the tenuous, vague nature of intellectual abstractions (24). When we see the neutral kernel, we can see how else it might have developed, in order to create a transformative vision that can inform the new Left.
The emotional situation today is, in two words, irreversible and ambivalent (25). The work organization pervades socialization to the point where in order to develop ourselves outside the framework of production, we need to play into the game of the wage system in order to reach a point where we can work as minimally as possible, allowing ourselves the socialization beyond the workplace (14). Virno observes the rootlessness of the current society that is so normalized it “no longer evokes exile or emigration” (29). Instead, we are rooted in the “here and now”, and we choose our allegiances of belonging not to something (that implies concrete groups or geography) but to which (that is a more flexible understanding of the abstractions that comprises identity today) (31).
This, Virno writes, has enormous transformative potential, as it allows individuals to question their status quo and choose defection and exodus. Exodus is not a “moving away” but a “moving towards" a place which constitutes of our own activity, instead of wage labour (32); Virno references youth movements and labour organizations who decided to “abandon their roles and their off their oppressive chains rather than confront them openly” (31). Similarly, defection is not a relinquishment of responsibility, but an initiative to move from the current conditions of conflict, to choose one’s own circumstances, as opposed to submitting to dominant paradigms (32).
We need to question ourselves, then, what this defection and exodus would look like, to get away from a socialization defined by work culture, into one defined by non-work, while still working within the current framework we are given. What are our current paradigms that provide us with equivalence? Can we identify the neutral kernel that allows the workplace to pervade socialization?
Works Cited:
Virno, Paolo. “The Ambivalence of Disenchantment.” Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics. Ed. Paolo Virno and Michael Hardt. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996. Pgs 12 – 33. Handout.
Building on observations of 1980s, Paolo Virno seeks to create a theory of transformation that contextualizes the current emotional situation, concretizes the conditions and circumstances of conflict, and thus provides a framework within which to restructure potential politics (or in his own words, a “possible world”).
To begin, Virno diagnoses the emotional situation of the period (a little before 1996), the “modes of being and feeling so pervasive as to be common to the most diverse contexts of experience” (12), to conceptualize the “immediate coincidence” between the several “points of identity between labour practices and modes of life”. He points to the overlap – intrusion, even – of work organization into socialization, creating a wage labour culture which is “[m]arked by intensified domination” and has two major elements: opportunism, and cynicism (13).
Opportunism is characterized by “interchangeable possibilities” in which the opportunist no longer settles into a single position and steadily advances in the workplace, but instead is constantly trying to get ahead, insecure in its ephemeral position and retain its privileges. Opportunism creates a “stable instability” (16), with the only thing stable in the opportunist’s search for job security is the actual search.
This environment lends itself to cynicism, the recognition of a kind of game played by “certain epistemological premises” and the lack of equivalences. As such, the cynic sheds any expectation for objective truth and plays the game, flexible to its own shifting goalposts . The cynic intellectual exercises are meant to “predetermine the character of the cooperation involved in work,” using a set of rules with “minimized elaboration” (23). Virno’s cynic is short-sighted and concerned with immediate social survival, not with equality.
Opportunists and cynics dominate the wage labour culture for a reason; to get to this reason, Virno looks beyond the manifestations of the emotional situation to their neutral kernel, the condition which allows them to exist in the first place. Just as opportunism exists primary because we do live in a world where we “articulate ourselves primarily through possibilities, opportunities, and chances” instead of a set narrative, cynicism exists because of the tenuous, vague nature of intellectual abstractions (24). When we see the neutral kernel, we can see how else it might have developed, in order to create a transformative vision that can inform the new Left.
The emotional situation today is, in two words, irreversible and ambivalent (25). The work organization pervades socialization to the point where in order to develop ourselves outside the framework of production, we need to play into the game of the wage system in order to reach a point where we can work as minimally as possible, allowing ourselves the socialization beyond the workplace (14). Virno observes the rootlessness of the current society that is so normalized it “no longer evokes exile or emigration” (29). Instead, we are rooted in the “here and now”, and we choose our allegiances of belonging not to something (that implies concrete groups or geography) but to which (that is a more flexible understanding of the abstractions that comprises identity today) (31).
This, Virno writes, has enormous transformative potential, as it allows individuals to question their status quo and choose defection and exodus. Exodus is not a “moving away” but a “moving towards" a place which constitutes of our own activity, instead of wage labour (32); Virno references youth movements and labour organizations who decided to “abandon their roles and their off their oppressive chains rather than confront them openly” (31). Similarly, defection is not a relinquishment of responsibility, but an initiative to move from the current conditions of conflict, to choose one’s own circumstances, as opposed to submitting to dominant paradigms (32).
We need to question ourselves, then, what this defection and exodus would look like, to get away from a socialization defined by work culture, into one defined by non-work, while still working within the current framework we are given. What are our current paradigms that provide us with equivalence? Can we identify the neutral kernel that allows the workplace to pervade socialization?
Works Cited:
Virno, Paolo. “The Ambivalence of Disenchantment.” Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics. Ed. Paolo Virno and Michael Hardt. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996. Pgs 12 – 33. Handout.
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Date: 2010-10-30 05:15 am (UTC)As I am moving from a place of dependence where I was able to engage in defection and exodus, into financial independence where I force myself to engage in opportunism and cynicism; this is extremely relevant for me.
My pursuits went from very small highly specialized skilled work that paid a living wage but was in limited demand last year to high-demand work that requires no specialized skill sets this year.
Now it's a difficult balance because I still participate in the exodus (in at least three different arenas) while permitting myself the cynicism.
The conflict between whether the capital gain that supports defection is worth the meaningless wage labor. Also sometimes it is difficult to find acceptable terms of submission outside of the dominant paradigm. It's relative sterility affords some protection (at least for me) that working outside the framework does not.
(But yeah, spamming your comments now, time to construct my own damn post.)