His response to the all-encompassing nature of state power is to promote attempts at 'making do', or in other words, 'ways of using the constraining order.' (p. 30) Establishing some agency and creativity within a system that attempts more and more to train us to forget he posses these powerful tools. He gives the example of making laws, practices and representations 'function in another register...[the person thereby remaining] other within the system.' (p. 32)
He thinks the approach from those who currently document, analyse people (philosophers, journalists, historians, political theorists(?)) ignores this way in which people can use the hegemonic practices they are forced to abide by. He reminds the social sciences that they 'belong to the system which they study' (p. 41) and thus cannot claim an objective view point. He therefore credits the human with much more autonomy than, for example, early Foucault and his insistence that the individual is merely a result of the discourses to which he is subjected: 'the consumer cannot be identified or qualified by the newspapers or commercial products he assimilates: between the person (who uses them) and these products (indexes of the "order" which is imposed on him), there is a gap of varying proportions opened by the use that he makes of them. ' (p. 32)
One of the problems De Certeau highlights in gaining this agency in the present day, is the negative effects of technology: 'The child still scrawls and daubs on his schoolbooks; even if he is punished for this crime, he has made a space for himself and signs his existence as an author on it. The television viewer cannot write anything on the screen of his set. He has been dislodged from the product; he plays no role in its apparition... [he is] a pure reciever' (p. 31)
Whilst those in power can utilise strategy, forward planning, and therefore ultimately, probably outmanoeuvre any large-scale attempts at change, there are weaknesses in the way the state functions.... put simply, 'power is bound by its very visibility.' (p. 37) Ultimately, then, state power tends to 'privelage spatial relationships' (p. 38) Tactics on the other hand (the name he gives to those attempts to rupture the omniscient appearance of the state) can, to counteract this, utilise time, rather than space. Seizing opportunities for 'making the worse argument seem the better' (p. 38)
De Certau describe those who 'make do' as 'poets of their own affairs, trailblazers in the jungles of functionalist rationality' (p. 34) So, rather than seeing progressive politics in terms of 'the little people' up against the 'monstrous power' of the state, De Certeau emphasises that a tactic might actually gain 'perspicacity through it's blindness,' (p. 38) in other words, those without power see things differently, and this is an advantage, even a privilege.
Actions taken by those attempting to subvert state power are only seen as meaningless because 'they do not cohere with the constructed, written and prefabricated space through which they move' (p. 34) He talks about how cultural techniques 'camouflage economic reproduction with fictions of suprise' (p. 29) What I take this to mean is that we only get the illusion of surprise, or transgression in our day to day lives, as state power is so ever-present, and the only real motive for everything is economic growth, it seems to prevent anything entirely out of the ordinary happened. This reminded me of a more recent quote from Slavoj Žižek: 'we feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom.'
In this sense, I can see similarities with Hegel's theory of the dialectic, notably discussed in a recent book by Bruce Gilbert entitled 'The Vitality of Contradiction'. He argues (from a traditional Hegelian perspective) that we 'outgrow' political structures by 'learning from them,' that is, 'we go forward by pushing against ourselves.' And therefore, human creativity promises change. As De Certeau describes little subversions/uses 'like the snowy waves of the sea slipping in among the rocks...[can defile] an established order.' (p. 34) A slow process of gradually overcoming.
The metaphor is a useful one - nature proves how something that seems immovable, invincible even, can gradually be wittled away. The only problem then, is whether De Certeau's original analogy that pairs 'power' and 'space' still holds at all, Deleuze (more recently) defines the societies of control by their ‘ultrarapid forms of free-floating control’. What do people think? Is the model of erosion useful, or deterministic? Is there really any guarantee we'll be able to gradually 'wittle away' anymore, are we too passively accepting media in its various forms to go back to actively defying and 'making do'?
This is good stuff. It reminded me of something- Empire, by Hardt and Negri:
ReplyDelete'Empire creates a greater potential for revolution than did the modern regimes of power because it presents us, alongside the machines of command, with an alternative: the set of all the exploited...a multitude that is directly opposed to the Empire'.
The only thing Empire can do is to try to manage/control the multitude (which is the exploited, those against the Empire, the other 'city', as described) because it needs them at the same time if it is to function- which gives them autonomy, or a power in itself. In this view, there is hope for the multitude, and the writers go on to discuss ways in which this multitude can become an organized political power that can challenge the Empire. It is quite an optimistic way of looking at ways in which to challenge the current order of things. As though it is possible for change. That the oppressed have power, even.
You could somewhat liken this to the tactics of the weak. In a way, Empire describes how the multitude can make use of their status and become an organised political power. I know that we're talking on different platforms here, but reading this simply reminded me of this particular reading of Empire. I don't think that tactics intend to overpower at all...simply, to make use. And it is through the unpredictable, that they find strength. Unpredictability is the weakness of strategy. This is interesting, because Empire suggests that strategy, and organisation, is the way to become a political power.
Anyway, I think we know just how powerful the media can be, and when it no longer is a product of people and (arguably!) becomes a producer of people, is there a way to simply defy that? Maybe we're at the dawn of all of this... But in 100 years, will they even be asking questions of the media? So I personally think that your question of guarantee mostly depends on the power of the media, and the human condition in relation to it. Of course, I'm no philosopher by all means...what do you think?
I do think the part about how we cannot write on a tv screen is interesting because it sort of sets the media apart from anything else. Maybe the only thing we can do here is turn away from it? Maybe there is no way of subverting it, or becoming authors, or making use of tactics? Maybe, in the future, people will be sleeping less and less than they do now, what with new technologies and pills to stay awake?
I find interesting how technologies can be seen in such a different way.
DeleteAccording to Hardt and Negri, technologies can have different meanings: a tool to manage/control the multitude [via the creation of what they name as population] and a weapon against Empire.
On the other hand, one could argue that the 24/7-urban-environment technologies have only a negative impact, deteriorating the quality of our lives. I doubt that Crary would claim that technologies (the above-mentioned ones, at least) can help the weak and the oppressed in their struggles against the capitalist order.
Our project is internet-based but at the same time claims that internet (as other forms of technological innovation) is the cause of sleep deprivation, of deterioration of quality of life and of endless (re)production of capital. Is it a contradiction? I guess, if we can frame our project within Hardt and Negri ideas, the answer can be "no". Showing the contradictions of technology is something similar to the contradictions of the industrial economy explained by Marx. He didn't want to go back to previous forms of economy; rather, he wanted to move forward towards a more just society able to use industrial technologies without exploiting of the poor.