Being a communist in 2012

Al Jazeera.com, 9 febbraio 2012

Being a communist in 2012 is not a political choice, but rather an existential matter, writes Santiago Zabala.

Barcelona, Spain - Being a communist in 2012 is not a political choice, but rather an existential matter. The global levels of political, economic and social inequality we are going to reach this year because of capitalism's logics of production not only are alarming, but also threaten our existence. Unfortunately, war with Iran is likely to begin, public protest might increase throughout the West because of government austerity programmes, and these very disorders will probably be suppressed with sophisticated high-tech weapons.

These issues are existential; that is, they touch our Being. And as philosophers (sometimes called the "shepherds of Being"), we must fight against Being's ongoing annihilation. Certain contemporary philosophers ignore this vital matter in favour of technical, artificial or analytic problems not only because of the short-term profit they can obtain from them, but also because they are themselves already annihilated, an annihilation brought about by their obliviousness to existential questions, the question of Being.

This question is still crucial for philosophers, because it characterises all the other problems, and it determines them. For example, the solution to most technical problems are already available in the prejudices, history and culture that characterise a thinker's life, but the technical philosopher forgets that his life is the fundamental starting point for his investigations. This is why so few analytic philosophers comment on great sociopolitical events such as 9/11 or the current economic crisis: they believe philosophy has nothing to do with our existence in this world.

However, for readers of Al Jazeera still interested in the existential nature of philosophy, where our own Being is always at stake, communism might become a way to return to philosophy's original sociopolitical task. After all, it should not be a surprise that distinguished contemporary philosophers who focus on existential matters (such as Alain Badiou, Gianni Vattimo and Slavoj Zizek) have also reconsidered the meaning of communism for this new century.

While some might argue that it is not necessary to turn to communism in order to recognise these existential emergencies, it might turn out to be a useful practical theory given the meaning it has acquired today. As the late French philosopher Jacques Derrida explained, communism, together with Being, is a remnant of the past, the specter of a conquered fear overcome by Western capitalism and the artificial annihilation of philosophy.

It is precisely in its great weakness as a political force that communism can be recuperated as an authentic alternative to capitalism. But the fact that it has virtually disappeared from Western politics, that is, as an electoral programme, does not imply it is not valuable as a social motivation or alternative. The point I wish to make is that being a communist (or a protester) today is not only necessary given the existential threats posed by capitalism, but also actually possible because of the failure of Soviet communism.

Contrary to the opinion of most disillusioned Marxist, it is just this historical defeat that constitutes communism's greatest possibility to redeem itself not only as a political force, but also as the salvation of human beings in the 21st century. Instead of pursuing once again the contest against capitalism for unfettered development, weak communism can now embrace the cause of economic degrowth, social distribution and dialogic education as an effective alternative to the inequity that global capitalism has submitted us to.

This is probably why Eric Hobsbawm has suggested that the communism of the 21st century must become first and foremost a

critique of capitalism, critique of an unjust society that is developing its own contradictions; the ideal of a society with more equality, freedom, and fraternity; the passion of political action, the recognition of the necessity for common actions; the defence of the causes of the poorest and oppressed. This does not mean anymore a social order as the Soviet one, an economic order of total organisation and collectivity: I believe this experiment failed. Communism as a motivation is still valid, but not as programme. (E. Hobsbawm, "El comunismo continúa vigente como motivación y como utopía," interview by Aurora Intxausti, El Pais, April 12, 2003)

The weakened communism we are left with in 2012 does not aspire to construct another Soviet Union, but rather proposes democratic models of social resistance outside the intellectual paradigms that dominated classical Marxism. These paradigms have been overcome because Marxism has gone through a profound deconstruction that has contributed to dismantling its rigid, violent and ideological claims in favour of democratic edification. Being weakened from its own scientific pretexts for unfettered development allows communism to finally unite together its supporters. But who and where are the supporters of a weak communism?

As I have explained elsewhere with Gianni Vattimo, the remains of communism are constituted of everything that is not framed within "the iron cage of capitalism," as Max Weber used to say, that is, at its margins. These are the slums, underdeveloped nations and un-useful shareholders who, despite the fact they represent three-quarters of the world's population, are being annihilated existentially through economic and military oppression.

In response, social movements, especially in South America, have begun to fight back by electing their own representatives (Lula, Morales, and many others) in order to defend the Being of the weak and apply much-needed social reforms. As it turns out, the shapers of these new political alternatives have managed to defend not only their own existential interests, but also our own through the pressure they have recently exerted against a military intervention in Iran or the WB's economic impositions.

These democratically elected governments show an alternative model that the West could follow in order to escape the ongoing annihilation of human Being. It is interesting to note how the mainstream media portray as "communist" the OWS movement and the Spanish indignados for their anti-capitalist demands - although it is not entirely accurate. In doing so, they are trying not only to mock these protesters' demands, but also to annihilate their view from the consent of public opinion. Being a communist in 2012 is a way to avoid being annihilated, a way to escape the annihilation of Being in the world.

Santiago Zabala is ICREA Research Professor at the University of Barcelona. His books include The Hermeneutic Nature of Analytic Philosophy (2008), The Remains of Being (2009), and most recently, Hermeneutic Communism (2011, co-authored with Gianni Vattimo), all published by Columbia University Press. His webpage is www.santiagozabala.com.

Philosophers at War

Philosophers at war
(translated by Andrea Pavoni for Critical Legal Thinking)

In times of confrontations between explicitly material interests, and in the absence of any real public debate involving the Italian Government (busy protecting the orgy of power), what could be better than a proper exchange between internationally-renowned philosophers, on the alleged necessity of a military intervention in Libya? In an article published on the 28th of March on Libération, Jean-Luc Nancy defends the Western operation. Bengazi insurgents, he explains, are asking us to defeat the ‘vile murderer’ Gaddafi, and the West is called upon to assume the political responsibility for that desired change. Nancy believes that the non-interventionists’ arguments – the potential collateral risks of the operation, the suspicions about the real interests at stake, the principle of non-interference in the reserved domain of States, the weight of the (recent) colonial past – are de facto no longer valid in this globalised world, which empties the principle of sovereignty of any meaning. In such a world it is rather necessary “to reinvent the act of living together and, before all else, the act of living itself”. This, ultimately, would be what the Arab people are forcing us to acknowledge. Hence the necessity of the intervention, in order to protect the rebels from Gaddafi’s bloody clutches. In the second instance, only in the second one, the Western people (we all) should act so as to neutralise oil, financial and war merchants’ interests, already responsible for bringing and keeping such ‘puppets’ as Gaddafi in power.

The answer to Nancy, coming from a stupefied Alain Badiou, deserves the greatest attention. First, he reminds, in Libya we didn’t face a popular uprising such as the Egyptian and Tunisian ones. In Libya there is no trace of documents and flags of protest of the same character as those employed in Egypt and Tunisia, and no women are to be found among Libyan rebels. Second, since the last autumn British and French secret services have been organising Gaddafi’s fall; this would explain, third, both the weapons of unknown origin, available to the rebels, as well as the sudden formation of a revolutionary council to replace the Raìs’ government. Fourth: in contrast to the other Arab countries, explicit help requests have been coming from Libya. According to Badiou, the Western objective is evident: “to transform a revolution into a war”, to replace the rebels with weapons (heavy weapons, armoured vehicles, war instructors, blue helmets), so as to allow “the despotism of capital” to “reconquest” the effervescence of the Arab world. If this wasn’t the case, Badiou asks – and we ask our regime too – how could those same Western leaders, friends to Gaddafi, perform such a turnaround?

What, then, is to be done? Even in the case we would be willing to concede – and we are far from being persuaded by it – that the humanitarian motivation would suffice to justify the intervention. As Peter Singer contends recalling the catastrophe of Rwanda, it is still impossible to ignore that the UN resolution does not authorise a military intervention (Singer himself reminds that). From a utilitarian perspective – in his consequentialist version, that is – collateral risks do matter indeed. Wouldn’t it have been better to seek to obtain the desired outcome by resorting to deterrent measures and high-efficacy sanctions, emphasising precisely (and uniquely) the humanitarian reasons for opposing to Gaddafi? In any case, Nancy’s solution is wholly unsatisfying: why wait (for the military intervention to succeed) to prevent (only in the second instance) the sordid material interests from coming back onto the political scene? Doing this, Badiou explains, would equate to bowing to the Western will, repressing the “unexpected and intolerable” (for the Western warlords, that is) character of the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions, and thus the “political autonomy” and “independence” of the Arab revolutionaries.

Badiou is right: as I wrote in this blog some posts ago, the multipolar world has its own needs. It is simply not enough to remind all that the Western Imperialism of the cold-war and post cold-war era can no longer aspire to dominate the world. The true revolution will come when the West will learn to step back, to accept the difference, to realise that in a globalised world the concept of sovereignty has even more significance. Nancy’s is a logic mistake: it is exactly the world we wish for, the (international) society in which we would wish to live – to use the words written by Singer somewhere else – which calls upon us to revisit the traditional criteria of the interventionist logic. The world in which we would wish to live, today and tomorrow, is not that of Sarkozy and Cameron, but rather one in which the Arab countries, likewise those of Latin America and Asia, will be legitimate to build from a position of independence and equal rights with respect to the Western nations.

Gianni Vattimo

Filosofi in guerra

Dal mio blog su Il Fatto quotidiano, 7 aprile 2011

Filosofi in guerra

Quoi de mieux, in tempi di smaccati interessi materiali contrapposti e in assenza di un reale dibattito pubblico che coinvolga il governo italiano (impegnato a difendere l’orgia del potere), di uno scambio tra filosofi di livello internazionale sulla presunta necessità dell’intervento militare in Libia? In un articolo pubblicato su Libération il 28 marzo, Jean-Luc Nancy difende le operazioni occidentali. Gli insorti di Bengasi, spiega, ci chiedono di sconfiggere il “vile assassino” Gheddafi, e l’Occidente è chiamato ad assumersi la responsabilità politica dell’auspicato cambiamento. Nancy ritiene che gli argomenti sollevati dai non-interventisti – i possibili rischi collaterali dell’operazione, i sospetti relativi ai reali interessi in gioco, il principio di non-interferenza nel dominio riservato degli stati e anche il peso del (recente) passato coloniale – non valgano più, di fatto, nell’attuale mondo globalizzato, che svuota di senso il principio di sovranità, e nel quale è anzi necessario “reinventare il vivere insieme, e prima di tutto lo stesso vivere”. Sarebbe questo, in ultima istanza, ciò che i popoli arabi ci costringono a riconoscere. Di qui la necessità dell’intervento, per proteggere i rivoltosi dalle grinfie sanguinarie di Gheddafi. In seconda battuta, ma solo in seconda, i popoli occidentali (noi tutti) dovrebbero agire in modo tale da neutralizzare gli interessi petroliferi, finanziari, e quelli dei mercanti della guerra, che hanno condotto e mantenuto al potere “puppets” come Gheddafi.

La risposta a Nancy giunta da uno stupefatto Alain Badiou è degna della massima attenzione. Primo, ricorda Badiou, in Libia non si è assistito a una rivolta popolare del tipo di quelle egiziana e tunisina. In Libia non vi è traccia di documenti e di vessilli di protesta dello stesso carattere di quelli utilizzati in Egitto e Tunisia, e tra i ribelli libici non si osservano donne. Secondo, è dall’autunno che i servizi segreti britannici e francesi organizzano la cacciata di Gheddafi; di qui (terzo argomento) la presenza di armi di origine sconosciuta a disposizione dei rivoltosi libici, e del consiglio rivoluzionario immediatamente formatosi in sostituzione del governo del raiss. Quarto: esplicite richieste di aiuto sono giunte alle potenze occidentali, in Libia ma non negli altri paesi arabi in rivolta. L’obiettivo dell’Occidente è palese, secondo Badiou: “trasformare la rivoluzione in una guerra”, sostituire i rivoltosi con le armi (armi pesanti, mezzi militari, istruttori di guerra, caschi blu), così da permettere al “dispotismo del capitale” di “riconquistare” l’effervescente mondo arabo. Altrimenti come potrebbero, si domanda Badiou e domandiamo noi al nostro regime, quegli stessi capi di governo occidentali amici di Gheddafi operare un simile voltafaccia?

Ma allora, come sempre, che fare? Se anche – e siamo lontani dall’esserne persuasi – la motivazione umanitaria fosse sufficiente per giustificare l’intervento, come sostiene Peter Singer richiamando il disastro del Rwanda, non si può nascondere (è Singer stesso a ricordarlo) che la risoluzione dell’Onu non autorizza all’intervento militare. In ottica utilitaristica ma nella sua versione consequenzialista, i rischi collaterali contano eccome. Non sarebbe stato meglio tentare di ottenere il risultato sperato adottando misure deterrenti e sanzioni di elevata efficacia, puntando proprio (e unicamente) sulle ragioni umanitarie dell’opposizione a Gheddafi? La soluzione di Nancy è poi del tutto insoddisfacente: perché attendere (che l’intervento militare abbia successo) per impedire (in seconda battuta, appunto) il ritorno dei sordidi interessi materiali sulla scena politica? Così facendo, ci si piegherebbe alla volontà occidentale, spiega Badiou, di reprimere il carattere “inatteso e intollerabile” (per i signori della guerra occidentali) della rivolta egiziana e tunisina, “l’autonomia politica” e “l’indipendenza” dei rivoltosi arabi.

Badiou ha ragione: come scrivevo in questo blog qualche post fa, il mondo multipolare ha le sue esigenze. Non basta ricordare che l’imperialismo occidentale dei tempi della guerra fredda e degli anni immediatamente successivi non può più ambire a dominare il mondo. La vera rivoluzione giungerà quando l’Occidente avrà imparato a fare un passo indietro, ad accettare la differenza, a capire che il concetto di sovranità è ancora più importante, ora che il mondo è globalizzato. Quello di Nancy è un errore logico: è proprio il mondo che vorremmo, la società (internazionale) nella quale vorremmo vivere, per usare le parole scritte da Singer in altri saggi, che ci chiama a rivisitare i tradizionali criteri della logica interventista. E il mondo nel quale vorremmo vivere, oggi e domani, non è quello di Sarkozy e Cameron, ma uno che i paesi arabi, così come quelli dell’America Latina e quelli asiatici, siano legittimati a costruire in posizione di indipendenza e di pari diritti rispetto alle nazioni occidentali.

Gianni Vattimo