Vital Strategies Part Two

The Problem of the Subject

A fundamental idea throughout the history of Western philosophy has been the division between subjects and objects. Subjects and objects are differentiated through the concept of agency or activity. The division between agency and activity will become crucial later. A subject acts upon objects, while objects remain inactive. This structure of subjects acting upon objects is fundamental to the very structure of language, or at least how we conceptualize language. Language operates through communicating different things occurring to other things. This comes through the categories of verbs and nouns, the former describing actions while nouns describe the action's subject and object. There is always at least one subject-noun, object-noun, and verb within a sentence. All other categories of words either manipulate the description of the sentence or connect different nouns and verbs. Here the division between subject and object becomes a subdivision, as both are subcategories of nouns. Or rather, subject-nouns and object-nouns are subsets of nouns. Nouns are the linguistic expression of concepts. All linguistic expression is alienated from its initial content making effective expression difficult. The same applies to concepts themselves, as they categorize and seek to express the essence behind the concept. Unlike nouns, verbs do not express concepts. Verbs describe either a differentiation of the nouns, found in most standard verbs, or a repetition of the nouns, found in verbs such as to be. Difference is not conceptual, but rather pre-conceptual. Our various conceptualizations of difference and verbs’ expression happen after the expression has occurred, it is not fundamental to its structure. Whether or not a concept or noun is a subject or an object can change depending on the circumstance. In language, this is very clear, as different nouns can be either subjects or objects depending on the sentence. This is also apparent in situations involving concepts, as different concepts can be acting upon one another in different circumstances. Two people, for instance, each being classified as subjects, can be the one acting on the other in different circumstances. A classic philosophical usage of this is in Kantian ethics, in which one is said not to treat a subject as an object, to deny their agency and subjectivity. In simpler terms, Kant thinks one shouldn’t use another person as if they were an object. Another example comes in cultural theory, where figures such as Marcuse think that capitalist society treats us as if we are merely objects to be used rather than sources of expression and creative potentiality. This to Marcuse creates alienation.

These examples bring up a different usage of the subject besides merely a thing that acts upon other things, that being the subject and object of description. This subject is of course the subject as an individual, the concept philosophers have developed to describe our experience. The difference between the subject and the linguistic subject is quite clear, as the subject is a predefined object that possesses agency. Within language, the subject can function both as a subject and an object, with a subject being able to both act and be acted upon. Individuals as subjects can also be differentiated from different philosophical usages of the subject. There can be various subjects of processes, the primary actor in the process or the main thing being acted upon in the process. Spirit to Hegel for instance is the subject of history. Spirit’s perfection is the supposed goal of history, it is through the dialectic the ultimate driver of history while simultaneously being what is acted upon. Similarly Land finds history as being the development of capital’s deterritorialization towards singularity, utterly removing any semblance of the traditional individual subject from the process of history. This is perhaps the most extreme example of the difference between the subject of process and the individual subject. Returning to Hegel through the concept of contradiction, we find a subject at war with itself, being both the traditional subject and object of development. Nowhere in Hegel is spirit an individual subject, as individuals are but part of the process of history. Many Young Hegelians do however attempt to bridge the gap between spirit and personal subjects, to varying degrees of success. Feuerbach in his humanism uses the Hegelian logic of alienation to critique Christianity, instead substituting man for god. History then becomes human history and the development of spirit becomes the development of man. Both Stirner and Schmidt extend this logic to very radical conclusions. Stirner critiques Feuerbach for merely substituting the religiosity of god for a new religion of man. Using Feuerbach’s logic against him, he proclaims man to be alienating towards subjectivity and individuality. He sees the individual not as having any fixed essence, but instead something we create and define ourselves throughout our lives. From here he poses his egoism, which sees one’s cause based on nothing, it proposes no causes besides what one decides for oneself. Schmidt does a similar critique of humanism and the spirit but in a more explicitly Hegelian manner. He quite literally, as Deleuze accuses Stirner of doing, finds nihilism as the ultimate conclusion of the dialectic. From there he critiques Stirner for supposedly constructing a sacred cause of his own in egoism, which fundamentally misunderstands Stirner’s position. These thinkers reveal that the subject of process, or at least the Hegelian conception of process, and the subject of individuality are one and the same.

The question of the subject, whose details will be described after considering both constructions and critiques of the individual subject, involves both the question of the individual subject and the subject of process or rather the lack thereof as will quickly become clear. To begin to see the picture clearer we must begin with various conceptual frameworks of the individual subject. Of course, there is the Cartesian subject, from which most contemporary views of the subject begin. Descartes in his radical skepticism seeks to prove the existence of the subject. He does this through his famous phrase cogito ergo sum, or I think therefore I am, which has already been covered in the previous section. However with regards to the subject Descartes engages in circular reasoning. In a proof of the individual's existence he starts by saying the individual thinks, or more accurately doubts. Does this initial statement not presuppose the subject’s existence in the first place? Of course the act of thought displays being, this much is clear, however the being of what? Is it merely being-as-itself, the being of connotation? The thought exists as a phenomenon, a connotation, yet there seems to always be a sense of intentionality behind it. Why does thinking or any other subjective process occur and how does it occur?

Phenomenology perhaps gets us closer to an answer by starting with the phenomena themselves rather than any methodology of circular doubt. In its view of the subject phenomenology begins with what the subject observes and is engaged within rather than any a priori conceptions of the subject. From there it analyzes how phenomena is dealt with and builds up the structure of the subject in reverse. This is perhaps the most radical reversion of Cartesian thought while remaining within a Cartesian subject of sorts. In Difference and Repetition Deleuze states that phenomenology begins the task of reversing Platonism in continental philosophy, yet it does not complete it. For within phenomenology the transcendent unitary subject is not destroyed, far from it. Instead the structure of the subject is built up from the observations of the phenomenologist on the structure of our experience. Different theorists and schools of phenomenology constructed contrasting views of the subject based on their varying observations of the structure of consciousness. Husserl viewed phenomenology as an objective science, one contrasted to the physicalism and psychology of his time. His phenomenology relies on the concept of intentionality, in which consciousness is always viewed as consciousness of a particular object. There is no being-as-itself or rather consciousness-as-itself or connotation to Husserl. Consciousness is always focused on a specific object, material or metaphysical. This of course, along with the concept of being-outside-itself, relies on experience being first separated into objects. To Husserl experience must be a priori conceptualized, or at least must rely on concepts. There is no suitable notion of connotation or being-as-itself. Husserl also makes observations on the nature of the experiencing subject that would come to influence figures such as Sartre. To Husserl self-reflection and awareness relies on the manifestation of the subject prior to this realization. For we do not experience with constant awareness of ourselves as subjects, instead we are lost within our own focus and experience. Only retroactively do we describe experience as my experience, only then do we individuate ourselves.

While Husserl would go in a somewhat essentialist and pseudo-sophistic with his notion of phenomenology as transcendental idealism, different phenomenologists would prioritize the unity of experience with the object of experience. A key figure here is Heidegger, who through his notions of thrownness and being-in-the world distanced himself from a Cartesian mind-body dualism. Instead Heidegger takes an anti-humanist stance in his phenomenology, emphasizing the structure of being rather than the structure of a transcendent subject. Heidegger’s notion of being, dasein, emphasizes presence within a given facticity in which individuality is but a consequence. This movement would become crucial to later critics of the transcendent subject such as Derrida and the deconstructionists. Heidegger would later emphasize the goal of leaving metaphysics entirely, a goal he largely failed in achieving. While not necessarily offering an account of a transcendent subject, Heidegger gives a broader conceptualization of the structure of experience. This structure is not separated into the subject and that which is exterior to it, but it is a structure nonetheless. The structure is not one of teleology to be clear, it is very much within the emergent attitude of phenomenology more broadly. It is however only emergent from the perspective of theory, as in it is developed from observation rather than placed a priori. Yet in an application, as was covered in the discussion of hermeneutics, this becomes a conception of being that treats itself as pre-conceptual. Dasein as a conception is of course derived from the text, from the transcendent conceptual space, yet treats itself as prior to the text. Of course being-as-itself and connotation are no different in this regard, yet both as conceptions are fully aware of this. Both can only regard themselves as pre-conceptual beings because they are non-representational, they don’t attempt to conceptualize being but instead defer towards our own experiences, which are indeed pre-conceptual or at least non-conceptual. We cannot philosophize with them per say, it belongs more to Laruelle’s non-philosophy or Stirner’s radical anti-foundationalism, but we can use them as a starting point. Unlike dasein, along with the broader tradition of phenomenology, we can actively do philosophy within the realm of experience and subjectivity directly.

The next conception of the subject worth considering is that of existentialism, specifically the existentialism of France after the First World War. This milieu largely developed in response to the development of phenomenology in Germany and to some extent continued with its conceptions. Many notable existentialists, most importantly Sartre, were significant phenomenologists in their own right. Sartre would continue with many of Husserl’s observations, continuing with his observation of self-consciousness to develop a theory of identity and self presence in The Transcendence of the Ego. He would also later develop a theory of the phenomenology of presence and group structure in Being and Nothingness and Critique of Dialectical Reason respectively. Existentialism in its theory of subjectivity, at least in its Sartrean expression, would take one step forward and two steps back from where Heidegger left it. It constructed a theory of agency and action derived mainly from Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, in which personal choice and self construction are placed as primary. Sartre proposed a theory of absolute freedom, which is not a claim to all being possible but rather that one always has the possibility to make choices. One is always free to construct oneself as one pleases within a given context, a given facticity. From here Sartre proposes the idea of what he calls bad conscience, which is to deny one’s own freedom and state that one is trapped by their given circumstance. Of course Sartre does not deny one’s own facticity and how that limits one’s choices, but he does reject the denial of the transcendence of one’s conditions and the radical freedom it implies. In other words, Sartre suggests the subject has a fundamental sense of agency. From this sense of agency, the subject is able to construct both itself and its directionality or purpose. The existentialist social project is founded from here as a project prioritizing individual freedom and collective cooperation. 

While existentialism would radically change the direction of continental theory, it would be quickly challenged by currents skeptical of the traditional subject. This would be challenged from two often overlapping currents of thought. The former challenged the subject of phenomenology and existentialism from the basis of direct experience, challenging the very structure of experience posited by these currents. Bataille is the key example here, along with the various theorists of libidinal economy he would come to inspire. This would of course include Deleuze and Guattari, but also figures such as the early Lyotard. Bataille used his notions of excess and the limit experience to explore the limits of human subjectivity. During the process of a limit experience, the phenomenological structure of experience breaks down along with our very sense of self. One cannot conceptualize a limit experience except through negative reference, except through a floating signifier. It finds itself at the limit of affect, at the limit of connotation. Bataille also invented the notion of base materialism, which challenges the very division between subject and object. Base materialism denies the traditional distinction between materialism and idealism, instead viewing all aspects of experience as the basis of materialism. The notion of libidinal economy as developed by Deleuze, Guattari, and Lyotard follows from a similar logic, as it investigates the subjective outside of the transcendent subject. Instead it imagines desire as machinic, based on affirmation and vitality rather than transcendent structures such as those imagined by psychoanalysis. Desire does not begin from various structures, such as oedipus, but rather is captured within these structures through its facticity or thrownness to use Heideggerian terms. This is not to say we aren’t born with biologically conditioned drives, though of course these cannot be normalized into a nature per say due to the many extraneous cases, but rather these are caught within various social structures that condition these drives into identifiable objects. 

Lyotard in his work Libidinal Economy would, while agreeing with Deleuze and Guattari’s framework of libidinal economy, both contest Deleuze and Guattari’s optimism towards desire as a liberatory force and elaborate upon how desire becomes trapped within tools of social control. This brings us towards our second current, which challenged the transcendent subject through its contextualization within wider social processes. While neither current necessarily denies the properties of the transcendent subject, such as agency, it contests that it should be a foundation or the focal point of thought. Crucially, it does this because it views the traditional subject as constructed by the various social forces it is situated within. Lyotard explains this through the desire for submission, situating social control within a subjective context. We desire our own identity, our own construction of a stable subject that is easily controlled. Foucault explains the construction of subjects through three key concepts: disciplinary power, biopower, and subjectification. Disciplinary power operates through the construction of docile bodies which position themselves towards a standard of subject. This is done through various institutions which produce standards of subjectification. Biopower appears in Foucault’s later work as an exploration of how power has used the concept of the human species to control forms of life. Standards are created for what defines natural expression and action, creating apparatuses of normality that capture divergent forms of expression. Subjectification appears in Foucault’s essay “The Subject and Power” as a concept that he places as the primary object of study within his thought. Subjectification is the process by which power individuates subjectivity into an identifiable and docile subject. While Sarte is right that we can make choices within our given context of power, he does not account for the extent power influences choice and self construction. 

The context of cybernetic power we are captured within has become increasingly linked to the base of subjectivity itself. As we further construct ourselves within the processes of control our choices and actions become mere vehicles for capital. Every gesture has an accompanying commodity to identify oneself with. The revolution is on sale and has been for quite some time. Traditionally situationist means of displacing this process have become insufficient or at least obscured. How can we engage in a situation if the difference between commodified and radical gestures has collapsed. What use is there in détournement if détournement is for sale everywhere one looks? What we might call “postmodernity” has subverted traditional means of resistance. Institutionalized praxis, even if positioned from the basis of everyday life, is doomed to become the representation it once opposed. Land, Plant, and Fisher perhaps explored the growing interconnectivity of cybernetic power and subjectivity best through their creation of “accelerationism.” Accelerationism is not a political methodology per say, though many diverse programs originate from it, but is rather an analysis of transcendental time. Capital in accelerationism constructs the creation of subjects, becoming the subject of process. The subject becomes further and further entrenched within the operations of capital, as capital becomes no longer controlled by the circuit of capital. The superstructure overtakes the base, creating a self referential structure that escapes the linearity of time. The traditional logic of alienation in both the Hegelian and Marxist contexts collapse, as there is no authentic base left to be alienated from. Accelerationist politics thus does not seek an escape or overturning of alienation, but instead looks for radical potentialities within alienation. This is derived from Deleuze’s concept of the fold, where the outside is reached by moving through the territory. Outsideness collapses inward upon capital, leading to the view that acceleration is the only way to reach outsideness. Accelerationism looks not at accelerating the process of capital, whatever that would even mean, but rather seeks to accelerate its deterritorial tendencies. This is often accompanied by a complimentary political vision, however it is always beyond the initial logic of acceleration. 

Just as Hegel’s teleology of the spirit was deconstructed by the Young Hegelian account of alienation and individuality, accelerationism’s conception of nonlinear time must be combated through the emphasis of direct experience, of presence. This does not imply a return to a transcendent view of the subject, which postwar philosophy has already deconstructed, rather it implies an affirmation of a subjectivity without subjects. The subject of process in Accelerationism escapes its own representation through its own logic of the fold, of the outside moving through the interior. Accelerationism has no equivalent of the spirit, as it does not operate through the universalization of territory, instead implying territory’s degradation towards singularity. Here our conceptual divisions breakdown, and forces freely play in an immanent plane of transcendent alienation. The subject of process cannot become the process of the subject, as it does within Stirner, however the flows of acceleration can be opposed from the flows of subjectivity. Accelerationism, and cybernetic constructions more generally, are blind through their own teleology to the pure potentiality of subjectivity. The chicken-or-egg-esque problematic of subjects and subjectification collapses in subjectivity without subjects, as subjectivity through its investments within apparatuses both produces cybernetics and is the only form its destruction can take. To state a subjectivity without subjects is not to deny the apparatus of the individual, far from it. Instead it recognizes the individual as Stirner does, as a box to be filled by whatever we may deem fitting. No particular “filling” of this box should be placed as a foundation for individuality, as that alienates this individuality from its own potentiality. Subjectivity without subjects is ultimately based upon our preconception notion of being through the notions of being-as-itself and connotation, derived from Heidegger’s dasein and Deleuze’s affect respectively. Subjectivity could be said to be a plane on which connotation or affect occurs, a notion acting as a basis for experience itself. It is not a notion in the conceptual sense, as it is an anti-representational notion. It acts instead as a placeholder for the potentiality of subjectivity. In this sense it shares the ontology of both Stirner and the post-anarchists such as Bey and Newman. Bey, despite his shortcomings as a political thinker, holds a radically anarchic ontology that would come to be inherited and reutilized by Newman. Both at the basis of their ontology do not assume the validity of any apparatus or cybernetic construction. From this position they are able to oppose themselves to power from a position of war. In this respect they share much in common with Tiqqun, who contends that this ontological anarchy is not just the ontology behind power but the strategy of its operations. Just as Tiqqun makes its goal the rediscovery of presence, of life, we must propose an investigation of this subjectivity in order to utilize its potentiality towards its own liberation. We must propose from there strategies, strategies of an inherently vital character.