Desertion
An excerpt from one of Paolo Virno’s articles, on exodus, that appears in, I think, the most recent edition of the Gray Room, courtesy of Brett:
The culture of desertion … is extraneous to the democratic and socialist tradition. The latter has internalized and repositioned the European idea of the “border” in opposition to the American one of the “frontier.” The border is a line at which one stops; the frontier is an indefinite area in which to proceed. The border is stable and fixed, the frontier mobile and uncertain. One is obstacle; the other is chance. Democratic, socialist politics is based on fixed identities and safe delimitations. Its task is to grasp the “autonomy of the social” by making thorough and transparent the mechanism of representation that connects work to the state. The individual is represented in the work, the work in the state—a sequence without fissures, based as it is on the standing character of the individual’s life.
One thus understands why democratic political thought sank on confronting youth movements and the new trends of dependent labor. To put it in the terms of a beautiful book by Albert O. Hirshman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, the Left has not seen that the exit-option (abandoning a disadvantageous situation as soon as possible) was becoming prevalent over the voice-option (protesting actively against that situation). Instead, it has morally denigrated the category of “exit” behaviors. Disobedience and flight are not in any case a negative gesture that exempts one from action and responsibility. To the contrary, to desert means to modify the conditions within which the conflict is played instead of submitting to them.
Now, there are aspects of this that I like. But counterposing the ‘frontier’ to the ‘border’ as a way to think desertion requires a much closer, definitely more critical, account of the ostensibly ‘open space’ beyond the ‘frontier’. It seems to require some discussion of terra nullius. Maybe also the Western and landed property.
Then, there’s always the Red Planet.
I’ll say. I like Virno, up to point, but that’s pretty offensive, not to mention stupid since the frontier expanded by positing borders, signing treaties and then breaking them, and militarily borders can and often do work to project power beyond them, so they are definitely a part of a game of ‘mobile uncertainty’ - that of impending annexation, etc… These guys are getting very silly; this really is a sub-Sergio Leone view of history. What next? Reconstruct the network of mobilie alliances, ad hoc territorialization and fluid counter-hegemonies inherent in the feudalist system as radical potentiality?
TCO [October 27, 2005 @ 12:15 pm]
There’s probably something to be noted here about the coincidence of the Operaisti and the Spaghetti Western - and I don’t just mean in a critical sense, but it’s fascinating that any European country had such a fascination for the Western at that point. The Western has its Chinese, Japanese, Latin American, Australian, Thai and North American variants (maybe there are more I’m not aware of). But, why Italy?
And I agree - Virno is really very interesting, to a point. I also baulk at his argument that immaterial labour articulates the essence of human nature. I can’t explain that silliness other than as a function of his attachment to some sense of the necessity of revolution. Which is a whole other kind of silliness I guess.
s0metim3s [October 27, 2005 @ 1:56 pm]