Some preliminary remarks on the papers by J. Ulrich, C-P. Ortlieb and Blaha/Wallner.
1. In my opinion, Comte is the consequence of Kant: he thinks him through to the end by definitively suspending the “thing in itself,” which was still indispensable in Kant. Despite this, Kant himself had conceptions of “underdeveloped peoples” that were arranged in a hierarchy based on stages of development. From Comte’s perspective, Kant is infantilized or at least implicitly feminized, put into women’s clothing as it were, by still being bound to theology in a certain sense and still asking questions about objects and the possibility of knowing and processing them in general. All of a sudden, the old metaphysics of transcendence is feminized.
Such procedures are themselves entirely part of the value-dissociation repertoire with its shifts in meaning; the opponent is forcibly feminized in the competitive struggle. This points to value-dissociation as a principle of social form. Comparable statements can also be found among German Enlightenment thinkers, for example, when they say that the French are more like women (perhaps because they are simply too immediately attached to positivist thinking, unlike the spirit of grand speculation!), or when in National Socialism the intellectual is considered effeminate and feminized in contrast to the male soldier. The basic principle here is value-dissociation, which reveals its relational and flexible character, i.e. such attributions serve to case the opponent as inferior in an otherwise entirely male-dominated event.
2. However, this does not detract from the fact that both in positivism and in the (old) Enlightenment metaphysics and corresponding theories dedicated to the problem of constitution, a “dissociation of the feminine” can be observed in various colors and forms. A “dissociation” of metaphysics in positivism has always taken place on a common basis with metaphysics; and this happens within the overall context of value-dissociation, which represents the principle of social form.
Kant’s problem of constitution is itself entirely androcentric and Eurocentric. He dabbles, so to speak, only on the value side, the subject side. In a different tradition of ideas, this also applies to Marx up to Postone, among others. Unlike the latter, however, whose concepts need to be developed further, Kant’s investigation of the cognitive apparatus provides nothing for the value-dissociation-critical uncovering of the problem of constitution, except in a negative respect as a component of the object to be criticized.
It is undeniable that Kant, in a way, still takes materiality into account (albeit only abstractly), as opposed to just considering empty form. However, a form-content dualism has always been constitutive for modern thought (including metaphysics), and Kant has always moved within this dualism. In this respect, he has at most served as a hinge between old metaphysics/old ideas of constitution and positivist self-assertion, from which materiality, with its specific weight, is then ultimately completely eradicated.
3. If the old (Enlightenment) metaphysics already involved a “dissociation of the feminine” and thus made itself absolute as a problem of constitution and left out everything that did not merge into it, then this continues in a “value-critical” reductionist assumption of exchange/value as a principle of social form, insofar as it is presented as a – somewhat god-like – total omnipotent. In contrast, the theory and critique of value-dissociation aims to demonstrate the limits of such approaches; quite apart from the fact that it is not exchange that is constitutive, but rather the relation of subjection to “abstract labor,” from which the exchange relation is established in the first place, while dissociation is once again a meta-relation.
Otherwise, there is a danger that the critique of society and cognition, insofar as it merely invokes value in its logic of zero/one, reconstitutes it again in the critique. In doing so, value-dissociation cannot be held up against value as an even more universal, indeed now truly universal principle. With any affirmation of the absolute would immediately come its own denial, insofar as value-dissociation finds itself “automatically” constrained by its own concept to encompass even that which does not fit within it; it thus dares to “think against itself” (Adorno) and engages in a new relationship between the general and the particular, the singular, the contingent, etc., without establishing hierarchies or defining one side as the origin of the others. The assertion of the generality of value-dissociation as a principle of social form also implies that the non-identical is suspended in mainstream modern thought. Thus, with an affirmation of the absolute, the critique of dissociation would undercut its own affirmation.
Incidentally, this also means taking into account the constitution of “sensuality” and “nature” and not ontologizing them; even the “sensual,” which was left out in positivist thought in particular and which must be taken into account, is always already socially constituted. Sensuality cannot simply be interpreted as ontologically given, even if in some patriarchal-immanent concepts it is conceived in this way as the counterpart to abstraction (even in value-critical contexts). On the other hand, it is by no means absorbed in this constitution; nevertheless, it is different whether I satisfy my physiological hunger with maggots or Maggi soup (both of which can be equally miserable).
If such a train of thought is not followed, there is a danger that a relationship of derivation or formal attribution will be maintained, i.e. the logic of zero and the logic of one could, even through a critique of them, lead to an attempt at banishing them in a formulaic-magical way. Value, the subject, the zero and/or the one could then stand on the one side and the corporeality, the individual qualities and also the rest of “what” is abstracted from could be on the other. In this case, it would almost be like an equation: there is a “firm” side (value, subject, etc.), so to speak, which always remains, and a putty side, which can be all kinds of things that are not included in the first side, right up to the state and the androcentric metaphysics of the Enlightenment itself. In this way, the One can then remain as a One in the critique, the value-religion and the value-God are recognized as what they want to make us believe about themselves.
As already indicated, a knowledge of the problem of constitution does not necessarily mean the admission of the non-identical; this was not the case with Hegel, who again included it in the identical, nor was it the case with Marx, since he basically affirmed (surplus) value as being the one, and even in Kant the thing itself, although indispensable to self-constitution, was in itself contradictory; in Kant, the essential thing was the form.
4. Now, the fixation on the violent zero/one has two consequences: on the one hand, the forced equalization of other non-identical moments and, on the other, their suspension in the face of a complex mesh of power in the context of (world) society as a whole.
Firstly, value and the modern subject have, in a sense, arrived at a dissociation harem in the critique of the violent zero/one. Before the law, all are equal, and this problematic assumption is thus still tragically repeated in the critique of the violent zero/one. In fact, from the perspective of the natural sciences and the positivist sciences, it is indeed irrelevant that women, “black” people and “savages” are ascribed similar characteristics which are then dissociated in order to arrive at pure science and maintain it as such. However, only from the point of view of the modern subject are all the dissociated cows gray. Now you could say, well, then you just have to distinguish between different types of dissociation. However, if one chooses the aforementioned value-dissociation approach in its formulaic nature, one remains merely on the epistemological level; to take special qualities into account, however, means to become material and to turn to the matter, the (non-generalizable) content; otherwise this approach itself remains tautological and there is a danger that it will simultaneously exhaust itself in an approach that resembles zoological classification. In this context, violence is not only inflicted by the modern white subject on itself and the object per se, but also on (white) women and “other others.”
On the other hand, however, this tautological approach also leaves other (non-) subjectivities and (non-) egos out of a complex power dynamic by basically assuming a simple general model of repression, even if the (male) subject himself has to abstract from his corporeality. The modern white subject thus acquires the apparent role of the lone actor. In contrast, “black” people, for example, are equally inferior “others” as white woman, but what about “black” men who also see their wives as “others”? What is needed here is a more systemic approach (albeit not in the Luhmannian sense), which no longer takes the violent zero/one as a more or less abstract perpetrator subject without renouncing the concept of it and without drowning it in “differences” in an equally bad, abstract way. The tension between concept and differentiation must be endured without in turn hypostatizing this tension.
In the value-dissociation theory, the concept of “dissociation” is clearly delineated.
It manifests itself on the cultural and symbolic level of discourse, it encompasses the material dimension, women’s responsibility for reproductive activities, and it is also evident in the sphere of social psychology (the male child having to separate himself from his mother in order to achieve a masculine identity). Value-dissociation, moreover, is not simply found in specific spheres, but permeates all areas and levels of society, as it can also be understood as a social process. In post-modernity, in which the patriarchy is becoming feral, it has a different face than in the modern era. Since the theory of dissociation cannot assert itself as something absolute (in terms of the theory of knowledge) without denying itself, it is condemned to admit even what does not fit into it. Thus, it asserts itself as a reflection of a fundamental contradiction, which in its momentary formulation collapses into itself again and for this very reason and only for this reason can it represent the conceptuality of a fundamental relationship which is always relativized.
The precise knowledge of a zero/one that causes violence and (in one way or another) is dissociative, is thus only the first step towards a more complex theory of value-dissociation, that – ceterum censeo – wants to show that this one, precisely in its “oneness” that never fails to present de facto results in social reality, is precisely not what it thinks it is. The violent zero/one is and is not at the same time, at least not in its merely negative self-conception.
5. Incidentally, in relativizing itself, the theory of value-dissociation does not believe itself to be in the least bit beyond the commodity-producing patriarchy. In its recourse to the individual, the particular, the different, it by no means represents a “germinal form” of the Other. It is aware of its historicity and limitations and can only hope to “make conditions dance” in its formulation, in the knowledge that it still has a long and rocky road ahead of it out of patriarchal-capitalist conditions, at the end of which it can hopefully become superfluous itself. For this theory, the non-identical is by no means something that goes beyond the given situation, but taking it into account means first and foremost being able to embrace the existence of negative data much better than a reductionism of identity logic.
In this context, I also don’t think that there is a fundamental tendency within capitalism today for “the structurally male enlightenment subject increasingly striving to make its ‘gentle,’ ‘natural’ and therefore ‘feminine’ characteristics fruitful for the valorization process, while the ‘servant society’ (Frank Rentschler) that is currently emerging in the crisis is simultaneously in the process of relegating ‘feminine nature’ to its supposedly sole and ‘natural’ social place.” It is much more complicated: men are being forcibly feminized and turned into housewives in precarious employment situations; they no longer have the role of family breadwinner. Women, on the other hand, have to become competitive subjects, otherwise they will fail, because they are responsible for both life and survival, although at the same time, in fact, for example in management concepts, the “feminine values” and “sympathies” that also exist in men must also be harnessed in the valorization process. Measured against the old, modern notions of the subject, we now have a postmodern “one-gender model”: women are men (competitive subjects), only different (still responsible for reproduction). Today’s capitalism can no longer afford to reduce women to their (ascribed) “natural” role as in the past, even if women today – having come over from classical modernity – are once again given preference over men for servant and care work. This is why we still have a socialization based on value-dissociation, albeit in decay. Both sides of the relation are now in crisis – both value and the dialectically mediated dissociation, without both being “gone” as a result.
6. Nor do I see religion emerging in the crisis today as the “inscrutable feminine” (if I have understood this correctly at all), as the always other side of “instrumental reason, which today leads itself ad absurdum.” It seems more likely to me that it is not chaos that expresses itself (again?) in religion today; instead, religion today appears regressively as an order-maker, but no longer as a unified-universalist one, but as a fragmented-group-pluralist and also individualized one, as corresponds to the “fall of God into the abyss of his concept” in the decline of capitalism.
I think Jörg Ulrich’s assessment in his book Individuality as a Political Religion seems more accurate to me when he writes that Jörg Bopp describes the “[…] ‘mixture of technical dynamism and pseudo-religious faith’ as ‘one of the greatest dangers facing our civilization today’. With this fear, Bopp ties in with Detlef Clausen’s determination, who places modern anti-Semitism at the center of his considerations and states that here, as in all everyday religions, ‘truncated perceptions […] solidify into a reality-distorting system that can be shared not only by fringe groups, but by the majority of society.’ […] In them, traditional religion is overcome, but the fundamentally religious perception of the world remains and combines ‘with conformist elements of consciousness that spare individuals the pain of asociality’ […] Everyday religious subjects compensate for their fear of the consequences of consistent social modernization and its own processes of individualization and disintegration” (p. 134).
The one who turns the corner here first is Carl Schmitt (as Ulrich has just shown with regard to individualized subjects today), is the sovereign who is supposed to judge the state of exception in a decisionist manner, even if this is no longer possible today in the same way as it was in the era of National Socialism. This “state of exception” is constituted at the level of isolated postmodern individuals, but as a “molecular civil war,” a term coined by Enzensberger, which I transfer to the (apparently) private relational war between postmodern individuals (not only with regard to gender issues) that is raging everywhere today. In addition, of course, the same thing happens on the most varied levels of (world) society in the various civil wars; but also when lawless spaces, camps, etc. emerge and the sovereign (such as the USA) abandons constitutional considerations in order to restore “order.” The sovereign, who corresponds to the value-man-god, is invoked here once again in decaying capitalism, although or precisely because it can no longer consolidate itself today as it did in the past.
When capitalism gets out of hand in the course of the “collapse of modernization” and threatens to drift into the fragmentary and barbaric, there is a renewed need to confront this historically new form of chaos in a harsh order-making manner, even if this can no longer succeed like it did in the past. This new form of chaos and this new form of order-making are in fact mutually dependent and constitute each other; they produce each other in a specific form within the framework of a decaying capitalism.
7. It is possible to say for modernity that the value-god, secularized to a certain extent, now turns the genuinely religious god of pre-modernity, from which he actually originates, into a “woman.” Whereas the latter was previously the law, in modernity he is pushed into irrationality and is now considered chaotic and inferior himself. In my opinion, however, what we observe in religion today has less to do with the blazing chaos and more to do with the paradoxical synthetic resurrection of God after the end of the value-man-God, who himself had defined his precursor as inferior, a precursor who is now taken from the tomb as the great order-maker (albeit in fact in a fragmented, pluralistic form) in order to establish (or return to?) unity, order, and meaning because in fact value-dissociation as a fundamental principle and thus the subject-object split has not been overcome. With the crisis of socialization based on value-dissociation, the traditionally understood patriarchal god with a beard and a half bald head, which has been turned into a woman in modernity, is invoked today in all its obsolescence, ironically making this obsolescence even more apparent. And so it’s no wonder that the apostle Paul has recently been rediscovered as a revolutionary and that there has been a “theological turn of postmodern theory” (Doris Akrap).
Neither the postmodern “one-gender model,” in which competition and service are equally inscribed, nor the phenomenon of a potentially barbaric “(everyday) religion” have anything to do with gentle femininity; rather, both should be interpreted as symptoms of a feralization of the modern commodity-producing patriarchy. The question arises as to which inconsistencies can be taken up today, when inconsistency has already become, so to speak, the essential constituent of the current state of society, the commodity-producing patriarchy in decay and feralization. In other words, the paradoxical question arises as to which inconsistencies an already obsolete socialization based on value-dissociation, which nevertheless still exists in all its harshness, could point beyond itself. At the moment, I don’t think that it is possible to make any concrete statements on this.
In my opinion, however, it is possible today to at least analyze this state of affairs, taking into account a necessary differentiation between the concept and the differences existing in said complexity and enduring the corresponding tension without re-hypostatizing this mediatedness; knowing that this is only a transitory stage towards its abolition.
This is what is needed today, not SIMPLE knowledge of the existence of social “inconsistencies.” The question that leads us in this direction can only be asked if it doesn’t lead to a return to the strict concept of violence in the name of order and security. But this also means going beyond the SIMPLE determination of the violent zero/one with its SIMPLE inconsistencies in order not to unintentionally work towards a false and today anyway impossible resurrection of God in the barbaric fragmentation in the form of a value-concept-God.
Originally published on exit-online.org on 05/06/2005
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