Issue 182, June 2024

Cultures of Paradox

Articles

Justifying the paradoxes of modernity: On the emergence of contemporary cynical discourses

Domonkos Sik

Late modern existence is built around ambivalences: subjects experience the structural paradoxes of global capitalism or information society as social suffering; yet they follow behaviour patterns reinforcing the unsustainable trajectories. The article explores the discourses justifying such structural paradoxes, while normalizing the related suffering. First, the pragmatic theory of justification (Boltanski, Thévenot) is reinterpreted from a modernization theoretical perspective: a distinction is drawn between traditional, classic and late modern ‘tests’, ‘critique’ and ‘cités’. In the second and third sections, the gradual emptying of critique is analysed: as disillusionment reaches the sphere of subjective experiences, not even personal suffering can ground critique any more (Berlant), thus the impossibility of critique is demonstrated in a cynical manner (Sloterdijk). In the fourth section, the various cynical modalities of justification fitting the ambivalent contemporary existence are overviewed. Finally, a way out from the naturalized, quotidian cynicism is sketched: by turning cynicism’s logic against itself, the dialectics of justification can move forward.

Nature, significance, and the human perspective: Refusing the choice between scientism and posthumanism

Mathew Abbott

This paper criticises contemporary posthumanist theories of anthropocentrism by reading an early essay by Bertrand Russell alongside work by Rosi Braidotti and Jane Bennett. It argues that, despite appearances, scientism and posthumanism share key commitments in common, such that clarifying the problems with which Russell struggles regarding nature and significance can illuminate symmetrical problems in posthumanism. Against these alternatives, the paper draws on insights from Bernard Williams, contemporary Hegelian philosophy, and J. J. Gibson’s work on animal agency to sketch a picture of what it means to take a human perspective. It is the perspective of one species among others, with a particular evolutionary history; it is also the perspective of a species that, because of certain developments in that history, knows itself as such. That opens us to forms of answerability to the world that do not touch the lives of unselfconscious animals. Some critics of the theoretical discourse on anthropocentrism have argued that taking a human perspective is morally unobjectionable. This paper goes further: it is necessary for grasping our relation to the rest of nature and so our responsibilities for it.

Cornelius Castoriadis and Jacques Ellul on the dilemmas of technical autonomy

Nikos Nikoletos

Shortly before the end of his life, Cornelius Castoriadis turned to radical political ecology, which he seemed to consider the only way to de-colonize the technicist, capitalist imaginary (imaginaire), into which the totality of modern philosophy and praxis is, to use a Heideggerian concept, (heteronomously) being-thrown. Castoriadis’ critique of the capitalist imaginary, the imaginary of the unlimited extension of rational mastery, is in a state of eclectic affinity with the unsurpassed critique of the autonomous Technique by the French theologian and sociologist Jacques Ellul. Ellul had highlighted the necessity of demythologizing the spirit of technicism since the 1940s, when he was working on the uncontrollability of modern technology, which in his work is depicted as the societal manifestation of the Ge-stell.

The Weberian ideal type of formal rationality runs through the critique of both thinkers. For Ellul, technology, or technique, is intrinsically rational. However, when technique is in contact with social and cultural milieus which belong to a non-technical formation and organization, paradoxes and irrationalities are inevitable. In turn, Castoriadis emphasizes the irrationality and autonomy that characterize the modern sphere of techno-science, which leads, with mathematical precision, to the ecological, and also the anthropological, destruction of the Anthropos. Therein lies the central problem of modernity’s technology. Is there a way out? Castoriadis envisions the foundation of a true democracy, nowhere near theocratic, which, nonetheless, must learn to limit itself politically and technologically. Ellul, on the other hand, highlights the ethics of non-power, an essentially spiritual and idealistic attitude that Hans Jonas will adopt a few years later, talking about the heuristics of fear.

The complexity of historical time in the Latin American Marxism: Variegated social formations and structural heterogeneity in the work of René Zavaleta and Aníbal Quijano

Fabian Cabaluz and Tomás Torres López

This article investigates the categories of variegated social formations and structural historical heterogeneity, which have been developed from Latin American Marxism as a theoretical attempt that aims to account for the complexity of the debates around historical time. For this, the work of René Zavaleta Mercado (Bolivia) and Aníbal Quijano (Peru) is analyzed, revealing their connections and divergences. It is concluded that there are important meeting points, but also disagreements.

From systems to forms: Reconstructing Niklas Luhmann’s approach to relationships

Harry Blatterer

Niklas Luhmann’s approach to relationships was ambivalent. While references to the word abound in his work, his systems theory renders ‘relationship’ redundant as key concept. This has made it difficult for Luhmannian theorists to describe social forms that endure beyond serial interactions. Attempts have been made to overcome this ‘latency problem’ by conceptualising relationships as social systems. Contending that by focusing on communication these attempts reproduce rather than solve the problem, this article proposes an alternative solution. Centred in Luhmann’s conception of meaning, it conceives of relationships as meaning forms (Sinnformen) in whose construal the phenomenalising capacities of psychical systems play a vital role: mental operations such as imagined interactions routinely bridge phases of non-interaction, which are constitutive elements of relationships. This critical reconstruction aims to contribute to a fuller grasp of the interdependencies between serial interactions and enduring relationships in Luhmann’s own terms.

‘The coldest of all cold monsters’: Friedrich Nietzsche as a constitutional theorist

Panu Minkkinen

This article asks whether we can identify a vitalistic undertow in Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy that would make sense for contemporary political and constitutional theory as well. The arguments are presented by contrasting Nietzsche’s philosophy with the social theory of Herbert Spencer. After an introduction, the first main part discusses Spencer and his so-called ‘organic analogy’ in which he draws parallels between natural organisms and the body politic. Spencer’s social theory is a paradigmatic example of vitalism and organic state theory and, as a counterpoint, can help tease out Nietzsche’s vitalism as well. The article then examines Nietzsche’s admittedly fragmentary encounters with Spencer and his flirtations with vitalism and organic state theory. In the conclusions, the reconstructed narrative about Nietzsche’s vitalism is linked with Nietzsche’s main philosophical works in the hope of provisionally extracting a Nietzschean ‘constitutional theory’ from his notion of will to power.

Jeffrey Alexander, a statesman in social theory and cultural sociology: An interview with Frédéric Vandenberghe

Peter Beilharz and Frédéric Vandenberghe

Thesis 11 is pleased to republish this interview of Jeffrey Alexander by Frédéric Vandenberghe which first appeared in Sociologia & Antropologia in 2019 during the moment of Alexander’s retirement from Yale University. It is preceded by two new prefaces by Peter Beilharz and Vandenberghe. The interview ranges across Alexander’s entire career, from early journalism to the foundations of social theorizing to the supervision and mentoring of graduate students.